Nursing-care dependency. Development of an assessment scale for demented and mentally handicapped patients.

This article describing the first phase in the development of an assessment scale of nursing-care dependency (NCD) for Dutch demented and mentally handicapped patients focuses on the background to the study and the content validation of the nursing-care dependency scale. The scale aims to characterize the patients' nursing-care dependency as part of the assessment step in the nursing process, and is based on Henderson's 14 human needs. The Delphi technique, using two panels of experts (n = 44), was applied to reach consensus on significant indicators of nursing-care dependency. The experts' reasoning was used to develop criteria for the assessment of nursing-care dependency. Ultimately, the Delphi rounds generated 15 NCD items with their descriptions and item criteria. There was no fundamental difference between the NCD scales for demented and mentally handicapped patients. Nevertheless, there are two versions of the NCD scale because of the need to apply specific concepts in the nursing care of either population. The original Dutch version of the NCD is also available in English and in Norwegian.