Abstract: Objective: To translate the Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema Self-care Scale (BCRLSS) into Chinese and evaluate its psychometric characteristics in patients with Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema (BCRL). Methods: The BCRLSS was translated into Chinese using translation guidelines from the Beaton. A forward-backward translation and cultural adaption process between the original language (English) and the target language (Chinese) were performed. Psychometric properties of the final Chinese version of BCRLSS were verified in 244 participants with BCRL. Results: The CR value of most items were higher than 3.00, and the correlation coefficients were higher than 0.30. Validity analysis showed that the average content validity index of the scale was 0.99. The confirmative factor analysis showed that model yielded a reasonable fit:χ2/df=2.895, RMSEA=0.088. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was 0.853. Intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability of total score was 0.988. Conclusion: The Chinese version of BCRLSS has good validity and reliability, which can be used as an evaluation tool for self-care practice of patients with BCRL in China.

Key words: breast cancer; lymphedema; self-care; reliability; validity