To develop a long-term care needs assessment scale for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus(SLE) and test its reliability and validity.

Based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory,the initial draft of the scale was determined through literature review,semi-structured interviews,expert consultation,and a preliminary survey.Using random sampling,a total of 512 systemic lupus erythematosus patients from a tertiary grade A hospital in Wuhan city were selected as the research subjects.The preliminary draft scale was used for the investigation to test its reliability and validity level.

The long-term care needs assessment scale for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus consisted of 5 dimensions(symptom management needs,psychological needs,healthcare service needs,information needs,and social support needs) and 27 items.The overall Cronbach's α coefficient of the scale was 0.935,with subscale coefficients ranging from 0.707 to 0.888.The Guttman split-half reliability was 0.783,with subscale split-half reliabilities ranging from 0.721 to 0.885.The scale-level content validity index was 0.888,the item-level content validity index were ranged from 0.720 to 0.960.Exploratory factor analysis extracted five common factors,with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 63.674%.Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that all model fitting indicators were acceptable.

The long-term care needs assessment scale for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus developed in this study comprehensively covered the content of long-term care needs for systemic lupus erythematosus patients,with good reliability and validity,and could be used as an assessment tool for long-term care needs of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.