INTRODUCTION This paper is a report of a systematic review to identify and analyze studies of the measurement of empathy in midwives and other health professionals. Empathy has been recognized as an important factor in patient care, with positive outcomes for both patients and health professionals. There is a debate on the definition of empathy, on its measurement and on the possibility of improvement. METHODS Searches were made of the CINAHL, SCOPUS, PubMed and PsychINFO databases using the terms empathy, clinical, midwifery, nursing, medical students, measurement, and health professionals, singly or in combination, to identify literature published in English between 2002-2015. The included papers were critically reviewed and a narrative synthesis was conducted. RESULTS In all, 22 papers met the inclusion criteria by studies that were conducted to measure the levels of empathy in a variety of health professionals and students. Their scores were analyzed in correlation with their sociodemographic factors. CONCLUSIONS Despite numerous studies, many correlations but also differences exist, indicating the complexity of empathy and the need to further study it. AFFILIATION

Background: In recent years, a growing number of studies report on the importance of empathy to women's care. The Midwifery Empathy Scale (M.E.S) was developed in order to study and record the levels of empathy of professional and student midwives. The purpose of our study was to validate this instrument and determine the factor structure and reliability. Methods: The study sample (n = 242) consisted of professional (n = 114) and student midwives (n = 128) of 3 Maternity Hospitals (public and private) of Athens. Results: The exploratory factor analysis on the 25 item of Midwifery Empathy Scale (MES) revealed seven orthogonal factors (KMO Measure of Sample Adequacy = 0.817 and Bartlett's test of sphericity = 1508.169, df = 300, p < 0.0001. The MES showed medium overall internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha value: 0.546, p < 0.0001). The internal consistency characteristics of MES demonstrated good reliability. Our findings attest to the multidimensionality of MES, and the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) demonstrated that the 7 factor model offers a very good fit to our data. Conclusion: Our data indicate that the Midwifery Empathy Scale (MES) is a reliable and valid tool for assessing the levels of empathy of professional and student midwives for both clinical and research practices.