Meaning and Components of Parent Empathy Ability: A Delphi Study

Abstract

Objectives This study aims to clarify the meaning of parental empathy ability using the Delphi technique and to derive constituent and sub-factors. Methods To this end, the concept of parental empathy ability was defined through preceding research and liter-ature review, and the structuring factors of the ability were derived. An expert Delphi survey was conducted using the derived data to confirm the exploratory study of deriving the components of parental empathy ability. The data analysis method of the first Delphi survey questionnaire was conducted in order to define the concept of parental empathy and derive the structuring factors. A structured questionnaire, free-choice and open-ended questions were conducted with 13 experts in order to confirm the content validity. Using SPSS 25.0, the average value, standard deviation, skewness, agreement, convergence, and CVR ranges of each variable were calculated, and questions that did not meet each criterion were modified and deleted. Since the number of panels participating in the Delphi survey in this study is 13, if the CVR value is .554 or higher, it can be judged that the content validity is valid. The contents, were revised and supplemented with the experts, used to construct the second Delphi survey. It was used to construct the second questionnaire by reflecting the opinions of experts and revising and supplementing the contents. The second survey tool were gathered from the responses of the first survey. In or-der to clarify the opinions of each panel, structured questions with a 5-point rating scale were presented. Results First, the area of the scale consisted of three areas: ‘emotional empathy ability’, ‘cognitive empathy abil-ity’, and ‘behavioral empathy ability’, ‘emotional empathy ability’ consisted of perspective acceptance, cognitive empathy, and perspective acceptance, ‘cognitive empathy ability’ consisted of emotional response, emotional al-location, and emotional perception, and ‘behavioral empathy ability’ consisted of pseudo-movement, expression consistency, listening, and relationship formation. Conclusions The study is significant in that it derives categories and sub-factors of parental empathy ability that have recently come into focus. Furthermore, the study is significant in that it can be used as basic data for deriving the question composition through focus group interviews in the future.