Assessing medical student empathy in a family medicine clinical test: validity of the CARE measure

作者：Chen, Julie Y^*; Chin, Weng Y; Fung, Colman S C; Wong, Carlos K H; Tsang, Joyce P Y

来源：Medical Education Online, 2015, 20(1): 27346.

DOI：10.3402/meo.v20.27346

• empathy
• validation
• psychometric
• undergraduate
• medical student
• primary care
• assessment
• clinical consultation
• communication

Introduction: The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure developed and validated in primary care settings and used for general practitioner appraisal is a 10-item instrument used by patients to assess doctors' empathy. The aim of this study is to investigate the validity of the CARE measure in assessing medical students' empathy during a formative family medicine clinical test.
Method: All 158 final-year medical students were assessed by trained simulated patients (SPs) -who completed the CARE measure, the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE), and a global rating score to assess students' empathy and history-taking ability.
Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis identified a unidimensional structure. The CARE measure strongly correlated with both convergent measures: global rating (rho = 0.79 and <0.001) and JSPPPE (rho = 0.77 and <0.001) and weakly correlated with the divergent measure: history-taking score (rho = 0.28 and <0.001). Internal consistency was excellent (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94).
Conclusion: The CARE measure had strong construct and internal reliability in a formative, undergraduate family medicine examination. Its role in higher stakes examinations and other educational settings should be explored.

• 出版日期2015
• 单位河北医科大学; 香港大学; 香港中文大学