Abstract: Objective: To develop core competence questionnaire for oncology nurses in hospice care and test its reliability and validity. Methods: The formal questionnaire was formed after the literature review, consultation of 12 experts and the pretest of 136 oncology nurses. The reliability and validity of the final questionnaire were tested among 452 oncology nurses. Results: Six factors were identified and the cumulative contribution of variance was 70.3%. The overall content validity index S-CVI/Ave of the questionnaire was 0.967. The correlation coefficients between each factor and the total score of the questionnaire were higher than the correlation coefficients among six factors (P<0.001). The median score of the group with professional certificate of palliative care were higher than that of the group without certificate (P<0.001). The median score of the group participating in the training of knowledge related to palliative care was higher than that of the group not participating (P<0.001). There was statistically significant difference between higher-score group and lower-score group in terms of the median score (P<0.001). The Cronbach's α coefficient and split-half coefficient for the whole scale were 0.971 and 0.908, respectively. Conclusion: The questionnaire has good reliability and validity which could be used to assess the core competence of oncology nurses in hospice care.

Key words: oncology nurse; hospice care; core competence; reliability; validity