Validation of the Romanian Version of the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) among Undergraduate Medical Students

Sorin Ursoniu, Costela Lacrimioara Serban, Catalina Giurgi-Oncu, Ioana Alexandra Rivis, Adina Bucur, Ana-Cristina Bredicean and Ion Papava
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Sorin Ursoniu: Department of Functional Sciences, Discipline of Public Health, Center for Translational Research and Systems Medicine, “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania
Costela Lacrimioara Serban: Department of Functional Sciences, Discipline of Public Health, Center for Translational Research and Systems Medicine, “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania
Catalina Giurgi-Oncu: Department of Neuroscience, Discipline of Psychiatry, Center for Cognitive Research in Neuropsychiatric Pathology (NeuroPsy-Cog), “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania
Ioana Alexandra Rivis: Department of Neuroscience, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 020021 Bucharest, Romania
Adina Bucur: Department of Functional Sciences, Discipline of Public Health, Center for Translational Research and Systems Medicine, “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania
Ana-Cristina Bredicean: Department of Neuroscience, Discipline of Psychiatry, Center for Cognitive Research in Neuropsychiatric Pathology (NeuroPsy-Cog), “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania
Ion Papava: Department of Neuroscience, Discipline of Psychiatry, Center for Cognitive Research in Neuropsychiatric Pathology (NeuroPsy-Cog), “Victor Babeș” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timișoara, Romania

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: Medical professionals require adequate abilities to identify others’ emotions and express personal emotions. We aimed to determine the validity and reliability of an empathy measuring tool in medical students for this study. We employed Spreng’s Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) as a starting point for this validation. The process was performed in several steps, including an English-Romanian-English translation and a focus group meeting to establish each question’s degree of understandability and usability, with minor improvements of wording in each step. We checked internal and external consistency in a pilot group ( n = 67). For construct and convergent validity, we used a sample of 649 students. The overall internal and external reliability performed well, with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.727 and respective ICC = 0.776. The principal component analysis resulted in 3 components: prosocial helping behavior, inappropriate sensitivity, dismissive attitude. Component 1 includes positively worded questions, and components 2 and 3 include negatively worded questions. Women had significantly higher scores than men in convergent validity, but we did not highlight any differences for other demographic factors. The Romanian version of the TEQ is a reliable and valid tool to measure empathy among undergraduate medical students that may be further used in subsequent research.

Keywords: empathy; Toronto empathy questionnaire (TEQ); medical students; validation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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