title: Empathic and sympathetic orientations toward patient care: conceptualization, measurement, and psychometrics.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop instruments for measuring empathic and sympathetic orientations in patient care and to provide evidence in support of their psychometrics.
  
  
  METHODS
  Third-year medical students at Jefferson Medical College responded to four clinical vignettes in 2010. For each vignette, students indicated the extent of their agreement with an empathic response (conveying their understanding of patients' concerns) and with a sympathetic response (sharing patients' feelings). The authors calculated, based on students' responses to the clinical vignettes, two measures of empathic and sympathetic orientation. Students also completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 258 students in the class, 201 (78%) responded to all four vignettes and completed the JSE and IRI. The authors confirmed construct validity of the measures of empathic and sympathetic orientation through factor analysis. The empathic orientation was significantly associated with the measure of empathy (as measured by the JSE) but not with measures of sympathy (as measured by specific scales of the IRI). Conversely, sympathetic orientation was significantly associated with measures of sympathy. Thus, these results support the validity of the empathic and sympathetic orientation measures as assessed by four clinical vignettes. Coefficient alphas for the two measures were, respectively, 0.79 and 0.84.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The validated measures of empathic and sympathetic orientation provide research opportunities to enhance the understanding of the contributions of empathy and sympathy to physicians' competence and patient outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107, USA. Mohammadreza.Hojat@Jefferson.edu
authors.forename: Mohammadreza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hojat
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spandorfer
authors.forename: Daniel Z
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Louis
authors.forename: Joseph S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Gonnella
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D005791:Patient Care / Q000523:psychology*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*