The design and psychometric evaluation of the Supportive-Care Needs Scale (ZOKH-SCNS29) in patients living with cancer.

Background: Understanding the needs of cancer patients and planning to meet these needs is a major concern of the health system.

Aim: The present study aimed to design and conduct a psychometric evaluation of supportive-care needs scale in patients with cancer.

Methods: This study was conducted in both qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative phase, the questionnaire items were generated by analysing the data from 16 interviews, after which, face, content and construct validity were tested. To construct the validity, the questionnaire was completed by 229 cancer patients. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by internal consistency. Data were analysed using SPSS (version 18).

Findings: In this study, 4 factors were extracted from 29 items through exploratory factor analysis: 'Need to be understood by the spouse and family' (10 items), 'Need to manage existential and psychological challenges' (7 items), 'Need to manage lack of knowledge about the disease' (7 items), 'Need organisational-therapeutic support '(5 items). These factors accounted for 50.1%. of the total variance. Internal consistency was 0.88, and also the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was also 0.89 after construct validity for the scale items'. The Cronbach's alpha was 0.91 after the construct validity.

Conclusion: The findings of the present study showed that this supportive care needs scale is a valid and reliable scale for identifying the supportive care needs of patients with cancer.