Empathy questionnaire for children and adolescents: Italian validation

ABSTRACT

Empathy is important for interpersonal communication, social emotion, and social cognitive abilities throughout the lifespan. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA) in a sample of 472 Italian children and early adolescents aged 8–13 years. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor model with one item deleted from the original version. The reliability was acceptable. Measurement invariance was established across gender, age and time. Significant differences by gender and age groups were found. Moreover, empathy was positively correlated with prosocial behaviours and negatively correlated with internalizing and externalizing problems. These findings suggest that the EmQue-CA is a reliable and valid instrument among Italian children and early adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Empathy questionnaire
• Italian children and adolescents
• psychometric properties
• self-report

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability Statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are openly available in ‘figshare’ at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20060120.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2022.2096000