The Validation of the Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ) and SCQ Short Form in an English-Speaking U.S. Population: A Patient-Reported Measure of Compassion in Healthcare

<b>Background:</b> Compassion is recognized as a key component of high-quality healthcare. The literature shows that compassion is essential to improving patient-reported outcomes and fostering health care professionals' (HCPs) response and resilience to burnout. However, compassion is inherently difficult to define, and a validated tool to reliably quantify and measure patients' experience of compassion in healthcare settings did not exist until recently. The Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ) was compared to six similar tools in 2022 and emerged as the most reliable tool to assess compassion. The purpose of our study was to validate the SCQ in an English-speaking U.S. population. <b>Methods:</b> A total of 272 patients completed our survey, which included the SCQ and 17 demographic-related questions. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to establish the construct validity of the SCQ and also the five-item version, the SCQ Short Form (SCQ-SF). <b>Results:</b> The CFA confirmed a good model fit, with factor loadings ranging from 0.81 to 0.93. Further analysis showed strong reliability, ranging from 0.866 to 0.957, and with an overall Cronbach's alpha = 0.96. <b>Conclusions:</b> This study validates the SCQ and SCQ-SF in an English-speaking U.S. population and provides researchers and HCPs with a reliable psychometric tool to measure compassion across healthcare settings.