Assessment
Validated Assessment Tools
The instruments that allow compassion to be measured with the same seriousness we apply to any other clinical competency.
Patient-rated measures
Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ)
Sinclair et al. (2021); Chen et al. (2024) US validation
The most rigorously validated patient-rated measure of compassion. Five domains: recognizing suffering, universality of suffering, emotional resonance, tolerating distress, motivation to act.
Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale (SCCCS)
Lown, Muncer, & Chadwick (2015)
Brief patient-rated scale designed for clinical settings. Measures perceived compassion in specific clinical encounters.
Therapeutic Presence Inventory, Patient Version
Geller, Greenberg, & Watson (2010)
Measures patient perception of clinician presence during therapeutic encounters.
Self-report measures for students and clinicians
Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and SCS-Short Form
Neff (2003)
The gold standard for measuring self-compassion. Six subscales: self-kindness, self-judgment, common humanity, isolation, mindfulness, over-identification.
Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE-S)
Hojat et al.
The standard for cohort-level empathy tracking in health professions education. Student version available.
Compassion Scale (CS)
Pommier, Neff, & Tóth-Király (2020)
Measures compassion toward others. Parallels the structure of the Self-Compassion Scale.
Adult Hope Scale (AHS)
Snyder et al. (1991)
Measures hope as defined by Snyder's hope theory: goals, pathways thinking, agency thinking.
Observational and encounter-based measures
Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE)
Mercer et al. (2004)
Patient-completed measure of perceived empathy in consultations. Widely used in primary care research.
Four Habits Coding Scheme
Krupat et al. (2006)
Observational coding of clinical encounters. Assesses investment in the beginning, eliciting perspective, demonstrating empathy, and investing in the end.
Specialty measures
Instruments for specific constructs addressed in the Integration Phase:
Occupational Distress Syndrome Assessment
OccupationalDistressSyndrome.com
Interactive self-assessment tool for the seven causal pathways of occupational distress: Empathic Distress, Moral Injury, Trauma Exposure, Demand-Resource Imbalance, Effort-Reward Imbalance, Unanswered Occupational Calling, and Interpersonal Safety Deficit.
Take the assessmentMoral Injury Symptom Scale (MISS-HP)
Mantri et al. (2020)
Measures moral injury specifically in healthcare professional populations.
Moral Distress Scale-Revised
Hamric et al.
The widely used measure of moral distress in clinical settings.
Rushton Moral Resilience Scale (RMRS)
Heinze, Holtz, & Rushton (2021)
The validated instrument for the moral resilience construct.
Cultural Humility Scale (CHS)
Hook et al. (2013)
Validated for healthcare contexts. Measures the cultural humility construct.
Implementation guidance
When to assess
Baseline (program entry), mid-program (after Foundation Phase), and exit. Longitudinal tracking allows programs to identify empathy decline early and intervene.
Which instruments to choose
At minimum: one self-report (SCS-SF for self-compassion or JSE-S for empathy) and one patient-rated measure (SCQ or SCCCS) when students reach clinical placements.
How to use results
Assessment data should inform curriculum design, not student grading. Compassion is developmental. Punishing students for honest self-report undermines the purpose of measurement.