ABSTRACT
The capacity to recognise others as being different from oneself is an essential element of empathy. Achille's treatment in a child psychiatry unit illustrates the clinical presentation of a teenager who lacks this social skill. The use of the Griffith Empathy Measure improves the screening and evaluation of this disorder, with the aim of being able to provide the young patient with adapted support.
Subject(s)
Empathy , Nurse-Patient Relations , Psychiatric Nursing , Psychotherapy , Adolescent , Antisocial Personality Disorder/nursing , Antisocial Personality Disorder/psychology , Child Abuse/psychology , Child Abuse/therapy , Hospitalization , Humans , Male , Patient Compliance/psychology , Personality Assessment , Personality Disorders/nursing , Personality Disorders/psychology , Social Skills , Social SupportABSTRACT
Introduction : empathy has been considered since a long time under the angle of human sciences. Today, certain neuro-scientific postulates complement this knowledge. Context : observation of adolescents presenting psychiatric disorders, accompagnied by conduct disorders and/or psychopathic traits, frequently describe empathy deficits ; nurses should evaluate the nature and the degree of empathy of these adolescents. Aims : this litterature review aims to expose the clinical characteristics of empathy deficit from its definition and to describe the clinical evaluation tools. Method : target population of this review is children and adolescents from twelve to eighteen years old. The review was carried out with PubMed, CINAHL and PsycINFO, from 2002 to 2012. Results : twenty-two articles were retained. Empathy is defined as a mechanism combining several components of neuronal activity. Empathy includes a cognitive component, an affective component which are based on a neurofunctional dysfunctional substrate when there is a deficit of empathy. Three evaluation scales are distinguished : the Basic empathy scale, the Interpersonal reactivity index and the Griffith empathy measure. Discussion : three evaluation tools present the validity and reliability criteria for clinical use. Conclusion : the development of evidence based practices should confirm the interest of these tools for nurses.
