The influence of clients' perceptions of the helping relationship in the development of an empathy scale

The paper includes a discussion about the origins of items on a measure of cognitive–behavioural empathy. This scale was originally produced by the author as a teaching tool for an empathy education programme (for RNs) and subsequently developed into a quantitative measure of empathy. The instrument is being used as part of a triangulated approach for data collection on research into the effectiveness of an educational programme about registered nurses' empathy.
Antecedents of the initial item pool for the scale stem from theoretical views about empathy, the professional experience of others, and the researcher's experience with clients. While this scale has undergone some investigation for reliability and validity, this work will only be summarized briefly. The major focus for the paper is clients' reports of interpersonal conditions which they perceive as being helpful, or unhelpful, in respect of building therapeutic nurse–client relationships.