Abstract:Objective To develop a care demand scale for elderly patients with brittle hip fracture in postoperative rehabilitation period, and test its reliability and validity. Methods Literature review, qualitative research, Delphi expert inquiry method and pre-survey were used to construct a draft scale, which was then utilized to investigate 220 elderly patients with brittle hip fracture in the postoperative rehabilitation period, and item analysis and reliability and validity tests were conducted to develop a final scale. Results The final care demand scale included 4 dimensions consisting of 38 items. The exploratory factor analysis extracted 4 common factors, which explained 73.270% of the total variance, the Cronbach′s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.980, its split half reliability coefficient was 0.954. The content validity index at item level was 0.830-1.000, and the content validity index at scale level was 0.920. The average variance extracted value of each factor in the test scale was 0.527-0.826, the construct reliability value was 0.760-0.973. Conclusion The care demand scale for elderly patients with brittle hip fracture in postoperative rehabilitation period has good reliability and validity, and it is a suitable tool assessing the care needs of this population.