Measuring providers' verbal and nonverbal emotion recognition ability: reliability and validity of the Patient Emotion Cue Test (PECT)

Objective

To describe the development and validation of the Patient Emotion Cue Test (PECT) as a tool to measure providers’ emotion cue recognition ability.

Methods

The PECT consists of 47 video clips depicting emotion cues that systematically vary in intensity of both verbal and nonverbal contents. The PECT assesses the provider's ability to detect and identify patients’ emotion cues accurately. A multi-stage development process produced the PECT. Reliability and validity were assessed in three studies.

Results

Scores on the PECT are normally distributed with significantly above chance responding. Across three studies, the PECT demonstrates convergent validity through significant correlations with standardized tests representing multiple channels of emotion recognition, including the face, body, and voice. The PECT shows adequate inter-item and split-half reliability.

Conclusion

The PECT is an easily administered, reliable, and valid test of emotion cue recognition.

Practice implications

The PECT can be used in future research on providers’ emotion recognition ability, for evaluating self-assessment of ability, and as a teaching tool in medical schools.