Analysis of the Empathic Concern Subscale of the Emotional Response Questionnaire in a Study Evaluating the Impact of a 3D Cultural Simulation

Abstract

Background Empathic concern has been found to decline in health professional students. Few effective educational programs and a lack of validated scales are reported. Previous analysis of the Empathic Concern scale of the Emotional Response Questionnaire has reported both one and two latent constructs. Aim To evaluate the impact of simulation on nursing students' empathic concern and test the psychometric properties of the Empathic Concern scale. Methods The study used a one group pre-test post-test design with a convenience sample of 460 nursing students. Empathic concern was measured pre-post simulation with the Empathic Concern scale. Factor Analysis was undertaken to investigate the structure of the scale. Results There was a statistically significant increase in Empathic Concern scores between pre-simulation 5.57 (SD = 1.04) and post-simulation 6.10 (SD = 0.95). Factor analysis of the Empathic Concern scale identified one latent dimension. Conclusion Immersive simulation may promote empathic concern. The Empathic Concern scale measured a single latent construct in this cohort.

The empathy continuum: An evidenced‐based teaching model derived from an integrative review of contemporary nursing literature

“…Although there is limited evidence of effectiveness for educational strategies aimed at influencing healthcare students' empathic responses, targeted communication training (Çınar, Cevahir, Şahin, Sözeri, & Kuğuoğlu, ), role plays (Bearman, Palermo, Allen, & Williams, ) and mindfulness training (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, ) have been found to have some impact on how students react to people in need. Further, in Everson et al's, study, there were significant pretest post‐test increases in nursing students' empathic concern towards people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and a genuine desire to help, following their participation in a cultural simulation.…”

“…Two of the conceptual papers (Cliffordson, ; Latimer et al, ) and three of the educational papers (Everson et al, ; Levett‐Jones et al, ; Ward et al, ) referred to empathic responding and the notion of empathic concern. In the context of Cliffordson's and Latimer et al's papers, empathic concern was a subscale of the IRI and defined as the tendency to respond to and experience “other‐oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others” (Davis, , p. 114).…”

“…In the context of Cliffordson's and Latimer et al's papers, empathic concern was a subscale of the IRI and defined as the tendency to respond to and experience “other‐oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others” (Davis, , p. 114). Everson et al's () study used the empathic concern subscale of the Emotional Response Questionnaire (ERQ) (Coke et al, ), which measures emotional responses to witnessing someone suffering or in need.…”

“…and ten of the education papers(Beddoe & Murphy, 2004;Cunico et al, 2012;Everson et al, 2015Everson et al, , 2018Finch, 2016;Haley et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2018; Levett-Jones et al, 2017; Lobchuk et al, 2016; Mennenga et al, 2016) referred to…”

Measuring the impact of an interdisciplinary learning project on nursing, architecture and landscape design students’ empathy

“…Students’ empathy levels were measured using the Comprehensive State Empathy Scale (CSES) [24] prior to and immediately following the learning experience. Demographic data were also collected prior to the learning intervention.…”