Abstract: Objective To develop a questionnaire about the knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP)and training needs of clinical nurses on palliative care, and to test its reliability and validity. Methods Through referring to relevant literature and teaching materials, expert interviews, nurse communication and two rounds of Delphi expert consultation, the first version of clinical nurses' KAP and training needs questionnaire on palliative care was formed. A total of 204 clinical nurses were selected for survey by convenient sampling method. The items were analyzed and screened by the method of division analysis, correlation coefficient and factor analysis. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested by internal consistency analysis, split-half reliability and retest reliability. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by content validity and structure validity, and the final questionnaire was formed. Results The questionnaire consisted of four dimensions, with four items in nursing knowledge dimension, six items in attitude dimension, nine items in behavior dimension and ten items in training needs dimension. The Cronbach's α coefficient of total questionnaire was 0.938, and its split-half reliability and test-retest reliability of the questionnaire was 0.703 and 0.868, respectively. The content validity of the questionnaire was 0.919. Four common factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis, and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 72.335%. Conclusions The questionnaire has good reliability and validity, and can be used to evaluate the level of KAP of hospice care and training needs of the nurses.

Key words: nurse, hospice care, knowledge-attitude-practice, reliability, validity