A Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

A validated measure to gather patient feedback on physicians' empathy is not available in Swedish. The objective for this study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of a Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure (widely used in English).

Design, setting and patients

The CARE measure was translated into Swedish and tested on 554 unselected patients visiting physicians in two primary care clinics in northwestern Stockholm, Sweden.

Main outcome measures

Adequate translation, as well as reliability and validity of the Swedish CARE measure.

Results

The Swedish CARE measure seemed to demonstrate high acceptability and face validity when consulting a physician. The mean CARE score 41.5 (SD 8.9) over all 10 item was not significantly influenced by seasonality, age or gender. Scores were somewhat negatively distributed, but corrected item-total correlations were high (0.86-0.91) suggesting homogeneity. Internal reliability was very high (Cronbach's alpha 0.975). Factor analysis implied a one-dimensional structure with factor loadings between 0.89 and 0.93.

Conclusions

The Swedish CARE measure appears to be psychometrically valid and reliable enough in physicians.

SUBMITTER: Crosta Ahlforn K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5592356 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature