Development and psychometric evaluation of the Hospital Nurse Interpersonal Empathy Questionnaire.

Objective: This study aimed to develop the Hospital Nurse Interpersonal Empathy Questionnaire (HNIEQ) and evaluate its psychometric properties.

Methods: The primary version of HNIEQ was deductively developed through reviewing the literature, and then, its face and content validity were assessed. For construct validity assessment, 250 hospital nurses were randomly selected from hospitals of Kashan, Iran. Their data were used for exploratory factor analysis. Internal consistency was assessed through Cronbach's α coefficient and questionnaire stability was assessed through test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient. Ceiling and floor effects were also assessed. Data analysis was done via the SPSS program (v. 16.0).

Results: The final version of HNIEQ contained 45 items. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a six-factor structure (empathetic and ethical attention, perspective adoption, emotional affectability, altruism, emotion identification and responsivity, and reflection forecasting) for the questionnaire which explained 52.7% of the total variance of its total score. The Cronbach's α coefficient and the intraclass correlation coefficient of HNIEQ were 0.953 and 0.972, respectively.

Conclusion: HNIEQ is a valid and reliable instrument for empathy assessment among nurses.