A Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure

Objective: A validated measure to gather patient feedback on physicians' empathy is not available in Swedish. The objective for this study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of a Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure (widely used in English). Design, setting and patients: The CARE measure was translated into Swedish and tested on 554 unselected patients visiting physicians in two primary care clinics in northwestern Stockholm, Sweden. Main outcome measures: Adequate translation, as well as reliability and validity of the Swedish CARE measure. Results: The Swedish CARE measure seemed to demonstrate high acceptability and face validity when consulting a physician. The mean CARE score 41.5 (SD 8.9) over all 10 item was not significantly influenced by seasonality, age or gender. Scores were somewhat negatively distributed, but corrected item-total correlations were high (0.86-0.91) suggesting homogeneity. Internal reliability was very high (Cronbach's alpha 0.975). Factor analysis implied a one-dimensional structure with factor loadings between 0.89 and 0.93. Conclusions: The Swedish CARE measure appears to be psychometrically valid and reliable enough in physicians.