Development of a scale measuring emotional catharsis through illness narratives

Objective: This study intended to construct a scale measuring the catharsis effect on medical professionals or students through illness narratives (ECS-IN). Methods: After a systematic literature review and panel discussion, the researchers conducted a pilot study with a sample of seven hundred and eighty-two randomly selected healthcare students and providers in Taiwan to exam-ine psychometric properties using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for item derivation and factor extraction. The researchers also tested the validities and reliabilities of the ECS-IN scale to confirm its feasibility. Results: the EFA yielded 29 items and three factors: “emotional identification as self-healing” (12 items; 55.500% of variance explained), “emo-tional release for compensation” (10 items; 7.465% of variance explained), and “emotional adjust-ment for intellectual growth” (7 items; 4.839% of variance explained). The CFA yielded an 18-item, three-factor model with satisfactory fit to the data, where the χ2/df ratio = 1.090, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.996, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.997, and root mean square of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.020. The convergent validity and discriminant validities also demonstrated the feasibility of the ECS-IN scale. For the first version of the ECS-IN scale (29 items), the Cronbach’s alphas for the three factors and the overall scale were in the range between 0.912 and 0.971; for the reduced version of the scale (18 items), the Cronbach’s alphas and composite reliabilities were in the range of 0.888– 0.946 and 0.890–0.968. Conclusion: The findings proved that the ECS-IN could be a reliable and valid instrument to assess participants’ emotional catharsis through illness narratives.