The Patient Learning Needs Scale: reliability and validity

The article describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of an instrument to measure patients' perceptions of learning needs at time of discharge from hospital to home. Evaluation of the Patient Learning Needs Scale was based on responses of 301 adults hospitalized with a medical or surgical illness. Factor analysis isolated seven subscales: medications, activities of living, feelings related to condition, community and follow-up, treatment and complications, enhancing quality of life and skin care. These seven factors accounted for 56.1% of the variance. Cronbach's alpha for the 50-item scale was 0.95.