Development and psychometric validation of the hospital discharge readiness scale for post-operative brain tumour patients in Chinese adults

The purpose of this study was to develop a specific instrument to assess the discharge readiness among Chinese adults following brain tumour surgery and evaluate its psychometric properties. The construction of this measurement tool from March 2022 to April 2024 comprised two stages: the development of the scale (Stage I) and a cross-sectional survey involving 413 post-operative brain tumour patients to test its psychometric properties (Stage II). The final scale had 24 items with 4 domains. The item-level content validity index ranged from 0.850 to 1.000, and the scale-level content validity index was 0.926. Exploratory factor analysis showed a four-factor structure of the 24-item scale, accounting for 63.319% of the variance. The structures of confirmatory factor analysis formed validated acceptable fit indices after modification, which further confirmed the fit of the scale to the model. The scale showed an acceptable concurrent validity when compared with the RHDS (r = 0.456-0.875, p < 0.001). The Cronbach's α and split-half reliability of the total scale was 0.894 and 0.813, respectively. The scale has good reliability and validity and can be used to assess the discharge readiness of Chinese adults following brain tumour surgery.