ArticlePloS one2026
Rapid Assessment of Therapeutic Empathy (RATE): Development of a universal single-item empathy scale and validation of the patient-reported version.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTherapeutic empathy improves patient and practitioner outcomes, yet existing measures are often lengthy, conceptually inconsistent, and difficult to compare across respondent groups. Brief, universal measures (usable by patients, practitioners, students, and observers) are lacking. We developed a universal single-item scale - the Rapid Assessment of Therapeutic Empathy (RATE) scale - and conducted psychometric testing of the patient-reported version.
methodsWe used a three-phase approach: (1) item development; (2) pre-testing the scale by obtaining expert panel feedback (n = 9) and conducting cognitive interviews with stakeholders (n = 35); and (3) scale validation in an international patient sample (n = 521) assessing convergent, discriminant, and known-groups validity. Validation involved assessing correlations with the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure and clinical neutrality measure, and by assessing differences in scores by patient ethnicity.
resultsWe developed two versions (pictorial and text-based) of each scale. Expert feedback and cognitive interviews confirmed content and face validity. Pictorial and text-based versions showed high convergent validity with the CARE measure (r = 0.761 and r = 0.838, both p < 0.001), and discriminant validity with a clinical neutrality measure (r = 0.131 and r = 0.139, p = 0.003 and p = 0.001, respectively). Correlations with the CARE measure remained high (r > 0.70) and statistically significant (p < 0.001) across patient gender, ethnicity, and practitioner type. Ethnic minority patients rated practitioner empathy lower than White patients (pictorial p = 0.057; text-based p = 0.033), demonstrating known-groups validity. Patients rated doctors' empathy higher than other healthcare practitioners' (p = 0.001 for both pictorial and text-based); there were no significant differences in empathy scores by patient gender.
conclusionsWe developed the first universal single-item therapeutic empathy measure and demonstrated validity. The RATE scale is brief, accessible, and applicable to clinical practice, education, and research. Further research should validate practitioner-, student-, and observer-reported versions, and assess predictive and cross-cultural validity. This robust tool can support patient-reported routine measurement of therapeutic empathy and contribute to improving patient and practitioner outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.