Abstract: Objective: To develop a questionnaire on self-care health belief for patients with lymphedema, and to test its reliability and validity, in order to provide an effective tool for clinical nurses to evaluate the level of self-care health beliefs in patients with lymphedema. Methods: Based on the Health Belief Model, combined with relevant literature and guidelines at home and abroad, an initial questionnaire was formed through expert consultation and pre-survey. A total of 151 patients with lymphedema from a tertiary grade A hospital in Beijing were selected for investigation by convenient sampling to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire in July, 2021. Results: The final questionnaire contained 26 items which can be categorized into 6 dimensions. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.923, the half-folded reliability was 0.878, the test-retest reliability was 0.931, the content validity index was 0.925, and the content validity index of each item ranged from 0.830 to 1.000. Conclusion: This questionnaire has good reliability and validity to evaluate the self-care health beliefs of patients with lymphedema, so as to provide a reference for management plans for those patients in the future.

Key words: lymphedema; self-care; health beliefs; reliability; validity