Empathy in patient care…"a cognitive attribute that involves an ability to understand the patient's inner experiences and perspective and a capability to communicate this understanding and an intention to help."

The Jefferson Scale of Empathy was developed by researchers at the Center for Research in Medical Education and Health Care at Jefferson Medical College to measure empathy in physicians and health professionals (HP version) and medical students (S version), and health professions students (HPS version).

The scale is a self-administered 20-item test comprising a 7-point Likert scale that can be completed in 5-10 minutes. The JSE has been translated into 38 languages. To see a table of translated languages, click here. Guidelines for translation are available from the Center. We would be glad to hear from you if you are interested in translating the scale.

The JSE scales are used extensively in the United States and abroad . To see a table of worldwide use of the JSE, click here.

Web administration from the Thomas Jefferson University website is available for all versions of the scale. Scannable forms may also be purchased from the Center. Forms include the scale, demographic and specialty information. Scoring services insure data entry and scoring accuracy and provide uniformity of scoring procedures. See the order form for more information.

The Standard Report includes descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, range, mode and quartiles) for the group of respondents, an empathy score for each respondent, and Excel spreadsheet of raw data and individual scores. Additional Statistical Analyses are available upon request for an additional fee. These include gender/specialty comparisons, group comparisons by total JSE scores, comparisons by custom coded groups (paper administrations), and pretest-posttest comparisons.

For information, contact empathy@jefferson.edu.

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