Assessing Empathy in Anesthesia Residents with the Chinese Version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy: A Pilot Standardized Patient Program

Objectives To validate the reliability of the Chinese version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy(CARE)in physician-standardized patient(SP)encounter.We also tried to examine the agreement between video-based ratings and in-room ratings,as well as the agreement between the faculty ratings and SP ratings.Methods The CARE was translated into Chinese.Forty-eight anesthesia residents were recruited to make preoperative interview in SP-counter.Performance of each resident was graded by in-room raters,video raters and SP raters.Consistency between different raters was examined.Results The Chinese-CARE measure demonstrated high scale reliability with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.95 and high consistency in the in-room ratings in intraclass correlation(coefficient=0.888,P<0.001).Despite a good consistency in intraclass correlation,video ratings were significantly higher than in-room ratings(39.6±7.1 vs.24.0±10.0,P<0.001),and Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated that the pass/fail rate was significantly higher based on video ratings than based on in-room ratings(45/48 vs.22/48,P<0.001).SP ratings had a moderate consistency with in-room faculty ratings(coefficient=0..568,P<0.001),and there was no significant difference between the pass/fail rates based on the in-room ratings and SP ratings(22/48vs.28/48,P=0.12).Conclusions The Chinese-CARE measure is reliable in the assessment of empathy during preoperative anesthesia interview.In-room and video ratings are not equivalent,while SP may provide a feasible alternative for the faculty rater in the assessment of communication skills with an appropriate measure.