This study describes the psychometric properties of a Hong Kong Chinese version of the short form of the Support Person’s Unmet Needs Survey (SPUNS-SF) for caregivers of patients with cancer. A convenience sample of 280 patient-caregiver dyads was recruited between April and June 2018. A subsample of 70 caregivers completed the survey again, two weeks later. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) examined the instrument’s factorial structure, ordinal alpha coefficients evaluated the internal consistency, and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) assessed the test-retest reliability. Convergence validity was evaluated by the correlations with sleep disturbance and caregiver burden in caregivers. The Hong Kong Chinese version of the SPUNS-SF (SPUNS-SFHKC) had a high completion rate of 96.8% (271/280) among caregivers. The original five-factor model provided an acceptable fit with the data in the CFA. The ordinal alpha coefficients were 0.866–0.945, and the two-week test-retest reliabilities were 0.524–0.678. The correlations of the five domains of the SPUNS-SFHKC with caregiver burden were 0.257–0.446, and for sleep disturbance were 0.075–0.464. The SPUNS-SFHKC has a suitable factor structure and psychometric properties for use in assessing unmet supportive needs among Chinese caregivers of patients with cancer. The applicability of the instrument for long-term use still needs to be studied.

Tablet-assisted symptom assessment is a feasible method that can be further tested in busy clinical settings to assess symptom burden and identify individual needs for tailoring symptom management plans.