A systematic review on empathy measurement tools for care professionals

ABSTRACT

Empathic understanding of older adults is a critical attribute required for care professionals to provide quality care and relationship-based practice. To assess care professionals’ empathy, identifying an appropriate empathy measurement tool with good psychometric properties is needed. This systematic review aimed to identify empathy measures that can be used for care professionals and evaluate the rigor of empathy measures. Eligible studies published between 1950 and 2018 were extracted from five databases. A five-criteria appraisal framework was used for quality appraisal of empathy measures. A total of 11 empathy measurement tools were included. Based on the scores of the appraisal framework, CARE, JSE and TES were the highest quality empathy measures, and the lowest quality measure was EQ. None of the measures was specifically developed to measure empathy of geriatric care professionals. This review addresses the limitations of the existing empathy measures and suggests future directions for research.