Development of a Scale Measuring Emotional Catharsis through Illness Narratives

Hung-Chang Liao and Ya-huei Wang
Additional contact information
Hung-Chang Liao: Department of Health Policy and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40201, Taiwan
Ya-huei Wang: Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40201, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-16

Abstract: Objective: This study intended to construct a scale measuring the catharsis effect on medical professionals or students through illness narratives (ECS-IN). Methods: After a systematic literature review and panel discussion, the researchers conducted a pilot study with a sample of seven hundred and eighty-two randomly selected healthcare students and providers in Taiwan to examine psychometric properties using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for item derivation and factor extraction. The researchers also tested the validities and reliabilities of the ECS-IN scale to confirm its feasibility. Results: the EFA yielded 29 items and three factors: “emotional identification as self-healing” (12 items; 55.500% of variance explained), “emotional release for compensation” (10 items; 7.465% of variance explained), and “emotional adjustment for intellectual growth” (7 items; 4.839% of variance explained). The CFA yielded an 18-item, three-factor model with satisfactory fit to the data, where the ? 2 / df ratio = 1.090, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.996, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.997, and root mean square of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.020. The convergent validity and discriminant validities also demonstrated the feasibility of the ECS-IN scale. For the first version of the ECS-IN scale (29 items), the Cronbach’s alphas for the three factors and the overall scale were in the range between 0.912 and 0.971; for the reduced version of the scale (18 items), the Cronbach’s alphas and composite reliabilities were in the range of 0.888–0.946 and 0.890–0.968. Conclusion: The findings proved that the ECS-IN could be a reliable and valid instrument to assess participants’ emotional catharsis through illness narratives.

Keywords: catharsis; medical care professionals and students; purification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8267/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8267/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8267-:d:608267

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().