Sesso Gianluca, Brancati Giulio Emilio, Fantozzi Pamela, Inguaggiato Emanuela, Milone Annarita, Masi Gabriele
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa 56100, Italy.
IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Scientific Institute of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Calambrone 56128, Italy.
World J Psychiatry. 2021 Oct 19;11(10):876-896. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i10.876.
Empathy has long been considered a multidimensional construct, encompassing cognitive, affective and behavioral domains. Deficits in empathic competences in early childhood contribute to psychopathology, and have been variably implicated in several clinical conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and conduct disorders.
To identify and describe empirically validated questionnaires assessing empathy in children and adolescents and to provide a summary of related theoretical perspectives on empathy definitional issues.
A systematic review of the literature was conducted. Three bibliographic databases were searched. A total of 47 studies were selected for final analysis and 16 distinct measures were identified and described.
Questionable to excellent levels of internal consistency were observed, while few studies assessed test-retest reliability. Although construct definitions only partially overlapped, affective and cognitive domains of empathy were the commonest internal factors that were often separately evaluated. New facets of the construct (, somatic empathy and sympathy) and specific clinical populations (, ASD) could be specifically addressed through more recent instruments.
The combination of different assessment methods is recommended in order to foresee further improvements in this field and try to overcome the problem of limited convergence with more objective measures.
长期以来，共情一直被视为一个多维概念，涵盖认知、情感和行为领域。幼儿期共情能力的缺陷会导致精神病理学问题，并在多种临床病症中存在不同程度的关联，如自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）和品行障碍。
识别并描述经实证验证的评估儿童和青少年共情的问卷，并总结共情定义问题的相关理论观点。
对文献进行系统综述。检索了三个文献数据库。共筛选出47项研究进行最终分析，识别并描述了16种不同的测量方法。
观察到内部一致性水平从可疑到优秀不等，而很少有研究评估重测信度。尽管结构定义只是部分重叠，但共情的情感和认知领域是最常见的内部因素，且经常被分别评估。该结构的新方面（如躯体共情和同情）以及特定临床人群（如ASD）可以通过更新的工具进行专门研究。
建议结合不同的评估方法，以预见该领域的进一步改进，并尝试克服与更客观测量方法收敛性有限的问题。
