Abstract
BackgroundEmpathy is an important characteristic to possess for healthcare professionals. It has been found to improve communication between professionals and patients and to improve clinical health outcomes. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) was developed to measure this quality and has been used extensively, and psychometrically appraised, with a variety of cohorts and in different cultural environments. However, no study has been undertaken to systematically examine the methodological quality of studies which have assessed psychometric factors of the JSE. This systematic review will examine the quality of published papers that have reported on psychometric factors of the JSE.MethodsA systematic review of studies which report on the psychometric properties of the JSE will be conducted. We will use a predefined search strategy to identify studies meeting the following eligibility criteria: original data is reported on for at least one of the psychometric measurement properties described in the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) Risk of Bias checklist, examines the JSE in a healthcare cohort (using the student, physician or health profession versions of the JSE), and is published from January 2001 and in the English language. Conference abstracts, editorials and grey literature will be excluded. Six electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, PsychInfo, PubMed, Web of Science and CINAHL) will be systematically searched for articles meeting these criteria and studies will be assessed for eligibility by two review authors. The methodological quality of included papers will be examined using the COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist.DiscussionA narrative description of the findings will be presented along with summary tables. Recommendations for use of the JSE with various cohorts and circumstances will be offered which may inform future research in this field.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42018111412
Highlights
Empathy is an important characteristic to possess for healthcare professionals
Empathy is widely considered to be an important attribute for healthcare practitioners and has been empirically shown to improve clinical outcomes [1], and improve communication between caregivers and patients [2]
Evaluating the utility of empathy in healthcare settings is underpinned by the psychometric rigour of the instruments used to measure it
Summary
Empathy is an important characteristic to possess for healthcare professionals. It has been found to improve communication between professionals and patients and to improve clinical health outcomes. Empathy is widely considered to be an important attribute for healthcare practitioners and has been empirically shown to improve clinical outcomes [1], and improve communication between caregivers and patients [2]. Cognitive component is the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others, and the capacity to communicate this understanding back to them [3]. Empathy includes these two components, it is viewed predominately as cognitive attribute in healthcare settings [4]
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