Objective To translate the English version assessment instrument of nursing care dependency level in acutely ill hospita-lized patients （INICIARE）, and to validate the Chinese version INICIARE in stroke patients. Methods The English acute inpatients version INICIARE was translated based on the Brislin translation model, and culturally adjusted before researchers conducted two rounds expert consultation. Then 320 acute stroke inpatients were selected for reliability and validity testing. Results Experts′ response rate in the two rounds consultation was 94.44% and 100%, the Kendall′ coefficients of concordance was 0.360 and 0.373, and experts′ authority coefficient was 0.908 and 0.926; the final Chinese version scale consisted of 14 dimensions and 57 items, the Cronbach′s α coefficient for each dimension and the scale ranged from 0.838 to 0.985, split-half reliability ranged from 0.836 to 0.976, and retest reliability ranged from 0.778 to 0.973 （P＜0.01 for all）; the content validity I-CVI ranged from 0.880 to 1.000, and the S-CVI was 0.990. Conclusion The content of the Chinese version INICIARE is comprehensive, the scale is reliable, and it has good reliability and validity. Thus it could comprehensively assess the nursing care dependency of acute stroke inpatients on physical, functional, psychological and social aspects.