palliative care; needs assessment; patients

Objective: Although assessment of palliative patients' needs is a key issue in palliative care, a suitable instrument for identification of such needs is not available in Central European countries. Our objectives were to produce an adequate tool for identifying the importance and satisfaction of palliative patients' needs and to verify its psychometric properties.METHOD: The patient needs assessment in palliative care (PNAP) instrument was constructed based on a literature review and qualitative research (focus groups, n = 5). The psychometric properties of the questionnaire were verified by a cross-sectional study. The convergent validity of the questionnaire was determined by confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity were also tested. The qualitative research group comprised 30 participants (27 experts in palliative care, 1 patient, and 2 family members).