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In this study we validated the Empathy Quotient Short Form (EQ-Short; Wakabayashi et al., 2006) with a sample of Chinese nurses and nursing students. Factor analyses indicated that 15 of the 22 EQ-Short items presented a !-component structure across the sample. In terms of concurrent validity, moderate correlations were found between the empathy quotient and factors E, F, O, and Q3 extracted from the 16 personality factors. Trained nurses reported significantly lower levels of empathy quotient than did nursing students, but no significant gender differences were found across the samples. We found that the revised Chinese EQ-Short Form (EQ-Short-C) exhibited satisfactory internal consistency and test-retest reliability, thereby validating the EQ-Short-C as a meaningful measure for dispositional empathy among Chinese healthcare professionals.
Keywords: Empathy Quotient-Short Form, personality, nurses, nursing students, China.
In nursing research, empathy is identified as an essential professional quality for nurses and nursing students (Hope-Stone & Mills, 2001; Kalisch, 1971). Previous researchers found that nurse-expressed empathy correlated positively with patient-perceived empathy and negatively with patient distress (Olson, 1995; Olson & Hanchett, 1997). For these reasons, facilitating nursing professionals' empathetic ability has attracted an increasing amount of interest.
Empathy has been defined in a number of ways. In studies of individual differences, empathy is viewed as a personality indicator (Reynolds & Scott, 2000). Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) suggested that empathy might be one's ability to understand and share in the feelings of others, further emphasizing individual differences. In patient care research, empathy mainly refers to a kind of cognitive quality, that is, nursing professionals understanding patients' emotions and communicating that understanding to patients (Hojat et al., 2002; Reynolds & Scott, 2000).
Although more than 20 empathy measures have been used in nursing research, the results have been inconsistent because of the lack of instruments developed specifically for nursing professionals (Yu & Kirk, 2008). A recently developed relevant and comprehensive instrument, the Empathy Quotient (EQ; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004), has been widely used to assess dispositional empathy, that is, one's ability to understand and share in the feelings of others. According to the empathizing-systemizing theory developed by Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, cognitive and affective empathy usually co-occur and are hard to disentangle. In this regard, both the initial 40-item EQ and its shortened 22-item version...