The level of expressed emotion scale: A new measure of expressed emotion

✍ Scribed by John D. Cole; Shahe S. Kazarian

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 457 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(198805)44:3<392::aid-jclp2270440313>3.0.co;2-3

✦ Synopsis

The Level of Expressed Emotion (LEE) scale was developed to provide an index of the perceived emotional climate in a person's influential relationships. Unlike existing measures, the scale was constructed on the basis of a conceptual framework described by expressed emotion theorists. In addition to providing an overall score, the 60-item scale assesses the following four characteristic attitudes or response styles of significant others: Intrusiveness, emotional response, attitude toward illness, and tolerance/expectations. The scale underwent extensive psychometric development procedures: (1) theoretically based item generation; (2) pilot testing with normal and psychiatric populations to select the final items; and (3) construct validation within a schizophrenic population. The results were quite favorable and indicate that the LEE scale has sound psychometric properties of internal consistency; reliability; independence from sex, age, and amount of contacts; and construct validity.