Psychometric properties of the spanish version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy: making sense of the total score through a second order confirmatory factor analysis
Author
Ferreira-Valente, Alexandra
Costa, Patrício
Elorduy Hernández-Vaquero, Marta
Virumbrales Cancio, Montserrat
Costa, Manuel J.
Palés, Jorge
Publication date
2016-09-19ISSN
1472-6920
Abstract
Background: Empathy is a key aspect of the physician-patient interactions. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) is one of the most used empathy measures of medical students. The development of cross-cultural empathy studies depends on valid and reliable translations of the JSE. This study sought to: (1) adapt and assess the psychometric properties in Spanish students of the Spanish JSE validated in Mexican students; (2) test a second order latent factor model. Methods: The Spanish JSE was adapted from the Spanish JSE-S, resulting in a final version of the measure. A non-probabilistic sample of 1104 medical students of two Spanish medical schools completed a socio-demographic and the Spanish JSE-S. Descriptive statistics, along with a confirmatory factor analysis, the average variance extracted (AVE), Cronbach’s alphas and composite reliability (CR) coefficients were computed. An independent samples t-test was performed to access sex differences. Results: The Spanish JSE-S demonstrated acceptable to good sensitivity (individual items – except for item 2 – and JSE-S total score: −2.72 < Sk < 0.35 and −0.77 < Ku < 7.85), convergent validity (AVE: between 0.28 and 0.45) and reliability (Cronbach’s alphas: between 0.62 and 0.78; CR: between 0.62 and 0.87). The confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor solution and the second order latent factor model. Conclusions: The findings provide support for the sensitivity, construct validity and reliability of the adapted Spanish JSE-S with Spanish medical students. Data confirm the hypothesized second order latent factor model. This version may be useful in future research examining empathy in Spanish medical students, as well as in cross-cultural studies.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Accepted version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
61 - Medical sciences
Keywords
Empatia
Qualitat de vida
Educació mèdica
Psicometria
Empatía
Calidad de vida
Medicina -- Educación
Psicometría
Empathy
Life, Quality of
Medical education
Psychometrics
Pages
12
Publisher
Springer Nature
Collection
16;
Is part of
BMC Medical Education
Citation
Ferreira-Valente, Alexandra; Costa, Patrício; Elorduy, Marta [et al.]. Psychometric properties of the spanish version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy: making sense of the total score through a second order confirmatory factor analysis. BMC Medical Education volume, 2016, vol. 16, p. 1-12. Disponible en: <https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-016-0763-5#article-info>. Fecha de acceso: 25 ene. 2020. DOI: 10.1186/s12909-016-0763-5
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Ciències de la Salut [738]
Rights
© 2016 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/