Abstract
BackgroundIn occupational therapy, empathy is a fundamental concept and has a positive impact on health and quality of care outcomes for patients. It is a basic and essential concept that should prevail in the training of occupational therapy students. The aim of this study is to validate and cross-culturally adapt the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale, version for health professionals (JSE-HPS) in a sample of Spanish university students of occupational therapy.MethodsA cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted between 2019 and 2020. A convenience sample was selected, consisting of 221 students from the four courses of the Occupational Therapy degree at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos during the 2019–20 academic year. Each of the participants voluntarily and anonymously completed a sociodemographic data sheet (including age and sex), in addition to the following assessment scales: JSE-HPS and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).ResultsA culturally adapted version of the JSE-HPS that guarantees conceptual and grammatical equivalence specific to the study population was obtained. The psychometric analysis of the translated version showed a Cronbach coefficient α of 0.786. The test-retest reliability analysis showed an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.90 (95% CI = 0.86–0.93, p < 0.0001). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed positive results (χ2 = 269.095, df = 167, p < 0.001, Confirmatory Fit Index [CFI] = 0.90, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] = 0.04).ConclusionThe cultural adaptation and psychometric results suggest that the Spanish version of the JSE-HPS is a valid and reliable way to evaluate the empathic ability of occupational therapy students.
Highlights
In occupational therapy, empathy is a fundamental concept and has a positive impact on health and quality of care outcomes for patients
The emotional approach is based on the ability to experience an appropriate emotional response as a result of emotional state and feelings of other people, generating a shared affection or vicarious feeling [3]. Because of this combined conceptualization, the assessment of empathy has determined that cognitive factors are more dependent on cultural aspects and learning, while emotional aspects are considered as an innate aspect [4]
Construct validity Using Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the construct validity was verified with the factor model proposed by the authors of the original questionnaire conforming to the data that we have obtained in the occupational therapy students
Summary
Empathy is a fundamental concept and has a positive impact on health and quality of care outcomes for patients. The emotional approach is based on the ability to experience an appropriate emotional response as a result of emotional state and feelings of other people, generating a shared affection or vicarious feeling [3] Because of this combined conceptualization, the assessment of empathy has determined that cognitive factors are more dependent on cultural aspects and learning, while emotional aspects are considered as an innate aspect [4]. Due to the need to capture the essence and measure empathic attitude within the framework of patient care, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) was developed by Hojat et al [5] In this context, empathy was considered as a cognitive attribute, that involves the ability to understand a patient’s internal experiences and perspective, combined with the ability to communicate this understanding [6]. The JSPE, considered empathy as a cognitive attribute that allows understanding of emotions, experiences, and perspectives of patients, and understanding of emotions to be communicated effectively
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