The READINESS FOR HOSPITAL DISCHARGE SCALE (RHDS) measures patient readiness to return home from the hospital following acute care hospitalization. It is administered on the day of discharge, normally within 4 hours prior to discharge.

There are forms of the RHDS for three patient populations: adult medical-surgical patients, parents of hospitalized children, postpartum mothers.

The RHDS forms are available as patient self-report tools that are completed by the patient and as nurse assessment tools to be completed by the discharging nurse. Long forms of the scales range from 21-29 items. The short forms contain 8 items. (A physician form, similar to the RN assessment form is also available for adult medical-surgical patients).

The RHDS measures 4 domains of discharge readiness: Personal status ( how the patient feels on the day of discharge); Knowledge (the patients knowledge about care of self at home after discharge); Perceived Coping Ability (how the patient will be able to cope at home after discharge); Expected Support (how much help the patient will have if/when needed at home after discharge. The short forms were created by selecting the 2 items from each subscale with the highest item-to subscale adjusted correlations.  

Patient self-report scores on the RHDS are moderately correlated with quality of discharge teaching and are associated with post-discharge coping difficulty and readmission/ED use post-discharge. Nurse assessment of discharge readiness using the RHDS is a stronger predictor of readmission than patient self-report. Validity is supported by factor analysis and predictive validity with post-discharge coping difficulty and post-discharge utilization.

RHDS Scoring information: Scores are calculated by adding item scores and dividing by the number of items, thus calculating the RHDS score as the mean of item scores. The possible range of scores is 0 to 10 using this method. This approach applies to total scale and subscale scores.

There are slight differences in items between scales for different populations. Patient and nurse forms are parallel forms with the same items worded for the respondent. Use the same scoring method for patient and nurse forms.

Some older versions of the scale that were previously used and translated have a single dichotomous item as item 1. This item is not counted and was deleted from the versions currently available and the scales were renumbered to delete the former item 1.

RHDS scales:

• PT-RHDS (Adult Medical-Surgical patient): 21 items in 4subscales:
  • Personal status = items 1 to 6 (6 items); (item 2 should be reverse scored)
  • Knowledge = 7 to 14 (8 items)
  • Coping Ability = 15 to 17 (3 items)
  • Expected Support = 18 to 21 (4 items)
• PT-RHDS (Adult Medical Surgical patient) short form: 8 items (2 per subscale above)
• RN-RHDS long and short forms are the nurse version
• MD-RHDS is the short form physician version of the PT-RHDS for Adult medical surgical patients.
• FamRHDS (for Family Caregivers of Adult medical Surgical patients) – 21 items in 4 subscales – see RHDS for Adult Medical Surgical Patients for items by subscale.

• PedRHDS (Parents of Hospitalized Children): 29 items in 5subscales:
  • Parent Personal status = 1a,2a,3a,4a,5a,6a, 6b,7a (8 items); (items 2a, 5a, 6b should be reverse scored)
  • Child Personal status = 1b,2b,3b,4b,7b (5 items): (item 2b should be reverse scored)
  • Knowledge = 8 to 16 (9 items)
  • Coping Ability = 17-19 (3 items)
  • Expected Support = 20-23 (4 items)
• PedRHDS (Parents of Hospitalized Children) short form: 8 items (1 item from Personal Status subscales and 2 items from the other subscales)
• PedRN-RHDS long and short forms are the nurse versions of the Ped-RHDS for parents of hospitalized children.

• ObRHDS (Postpartum Mothers): 22 items in 4subscales:
  • Personal status = 1-8 (8 items); (item 2 and 5 should be reverse scored)
  • Knowledge = 9 to 15 (7 items)
  • Coping Ability = 17-19 (3 items)
  • Expected Support = 20-23 (4 items)
• ObRHDS (Postpartum Mothers) short form: 8 items (2 items per subscale)

English Language forms are directly below. Permission to use the scales for research or clinical practice is granted by the author (Dr. Weiss). Modification of the scales is NOT permitted. (See Permission to Use statement in the General Information section on the Hospital Discharge Scales Page. Links to approved translations are provided – please contact the translator for permission to use the translation.  

RHDS forms for adult medical surgical

PT-RHDS long form - English (Patient self-report)

PT-RHDS short form – English (Patient self-report)

FAM-RHDS long form- English (Family Caregiver of Adult Patient)

RN-RHDS long form – English (Nurse assessment)

RN-RHDS short form – English (Nurse assessment)

MD-RHDS short form – English (Physician assessment)

PedRHDS forms for parents of hospitalized children (including NICU)

PedRHDS long form - English (Patient self-report)

PedRHDS short form – English (Patient self-report)

PedRN-RHDS long form – English (Nurse assessment)

PedRN-RHDS short form – English (Nurse assessment)

ObRHDS forms for postpartum mothers

ObRHDS long form - English (Patient self-report)

ObRHDS short form – English (Patient self-report)

ObRN-RHDS long form – English (Nurse assessment)

ObRN-RHDS short form – English (Nurse assessment)

Approved translations

Permission is granted to use the scales. no modifications are permitted. Please contact the translator to inform him/her that you plan to use. Cite Dr. Marianne Weiss as author of the scale and also cite the translator in any publications.

Some scales have different items numbers depending on which revision of the English version was used for the translation. Note that in some of the translated RHDS forms, there is a dichotomous yes/no item “Are you ready to go home today?” as the first item. This item is not calculated in the scale score. If the dichotomous item is present, item numbers listed in the subscale scores above will shift +1.

 

**Awaiting permission                  ##Translation/study in progress   

READINESS FOR HOSPITAL DISCHARGE SCALE
Language	Scale	Responsible for Translation (^^ see citations below in reference list)	Translator email	Available on website
RHDS ADULT: ALSO CALLED PATIENT (PT) RHDS
Arabic	RHDS- Adult SF	Marianne Weiss^^	Marianne.Weiss@marquette.edu	x
Chinese	RHDS - Adult	Yu-Hua Lin^^	lin2368@isu.edu.tw	x
French	RHDS- Adult	Cedric Mabire, PhD^^	Cedric.Mabire@chuv.ch cedric.mabire@unil.ch	x
Portuguese/Brazil	RHDS- Adult	Vanessa da Silva Carvalho Vila, RN, PhD	vscvila@uol.com.br	x
Spanish	RHDS – Adult long form	Marianne Weiss^^	Marianne.Weiss@marquette.edu	x
Spanish	RHDS – Adult Short form	Marianne Weiss^^	Marianne.Weiss@marquette.edu	x
Turkish	RHDS- Adult SF	Dr. Sidika Kaya^^	sdkaya4@gmail.com;	x
Turkish	RN-RHDS- Adult SF	Manar Aslan ^^ modified from Kaya version of RHDS	manaraslan@hotmail.com	x
**German	RHDS adult	Dr. Michael Kleinknecht	Michael.Kleinknecht@usz.ch
Italian	RHDS Adult RN-RHDS Adult	Dr. Valentina Bressan	valentina.bressan@uniud.it	x x
Thai	RHDS-Adult	Sarinrut Sriprasong^^	sarinrut.sri@mahidol.edu	x
Japanese	RHDS Adult	Mizuko Sekino (Hashimoto)	mhasimoto-tky@umin.ac.jp       semizuki@fmu.ac.jp	x
Korean	RHDS adult military	Seun Yonng Joe	anjADOZE@yuhs.ac oe116@gmail.com	x
Korean	RHDS Adult	Jeoung Hee, Kim	jeounghee@amc.seoul.kr	x
Korean	RHDS -Adult Family Caregiver	Dr. Heui-kyeong Kwon	kheek21@snu.ac.kr; kheek21@gmail.com	x
Urdu (Pakistan)	RHDS - Adult	Ambreen Gowani	ambreen.gowani@aku.edu	x
Urdu (Pakistan)	RHDS – Adult Family caregiver	Farah Wasaya modified from version by Gowani	farah.wasaya2@scholar.aku.edu	x
Bahasa (Indonesia)	RHDS Adult	Azizah Khoiriyati	azizah.khoiriyati-2018@fkp.unair.ac.id	x
Persian/Farsi (Iran)	RHDS Adult (short form) RN-RHDS Adult (short form)	Dr. Fateme Jafaraghaee	jafaraghaee@gums.ac.ir	x x
##Bahasa Melayu (Malaysia)	RHDS adult	Rashidah Mohd Yusoff	2020223054@student.uitm.edu.my rashidah.yusoff90@gmail.com
PedRHDS: ALSO CALLED RHDS FOR PARENTS OF HOSPITALIZED CHILDREN FORM
Bahasa (Indonesia)	RHDS Parent	Suni Hariati	Suni.hariati84@mail.ugm.c.id	x
French	RHDS - Parent	Dr. Anne-Sylvie Ramelet ^^	anne-sylvie.ramelet@chuv.ch	x
Spanish	RHDS Parent	Jenni Baird- Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles	jebaird@chla.usc.edu	x
Japanese	RHDS -Parent	Kazuyo Uehara	k-uehara@me.au-hikari.ne.jp k-uehara@okinawa-nurs.ac.jp	x
Norwegian	Ped-RHDS	Elin Hjorth-Johansen	ehjorth@ous-hf.no	x
Iran - Farsi	RHDS Parent NICU	Dr. Naiire Salmani ^^	n.salmani@sbmu.ac.ir	x
Turkish	PedRHDS	Dr. Burcu Aykanat	aykanat_87@hotmail.com	x
Thai	PedRHDS	Patcharaporn Kaewwimol	champ_rans@hotmail.com	x
## Chinese	PedRHDS	Hyun jie Lee	uni_chae@yuhs.ac
## Italian	PedRHDS	Dr. Felice Curcio	felice.curcio@aousassari.it
OB-RHDS: ALSO CALLED RHDS POSTPARTUM/NEW MOTHER FORM
Chinese	OB-RHDS postpartum/ new mother form	Xing Chen	328590826@qq.com	x
Spanish	OB-RHDS postpartum/ new mother form	Gabriella Malagon Maldonado	Gabriella.Malagon-maldonado@sharp.com	x
Turkish	OB-RHDS postpartum/new mother	Belgin Akin ^^	belak1@hotmail.com	x
##Dagbani (Tamale, Ghana)	OB-RHDS postpartum/new mother	Joyce Adams	Yadams@nd.edu
Polish	OB-RHDS postpartum/New mother	Dr. Malgorzata Nagorska	ma.nagorska@gmail.com	x

 

References related to instrument development:

Weiss, M.E. & Piacentine, L.B.  (2006). Psychometric properties of the Readiness for      Hospital Discharge Scale.  Journal of Nursing Measurement, 14(3), 163-180.

Weiss, M.E., Piacentine, L.B., Lokken, L., Ancona, J., Archer, J., Gresser, S., Holmes, S.B., Toman, S., Toy, A., & Vega-Stromberg, T. (2007). Perceived readiness for hospital discharge in adult medical-surgical patients. Clinical Nurse Specialist, 21, 31-42.

Weiss, M., Johnson, N., Malin, S., Jerofke, T., Lang, C., & Sherburne, E. (2008). Readiness for discharge in parents of hospitalized children.  Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 23(4), 282-295.

Weiss, M.E. & Lokken, L. (2009). Predictors and outcomes of postpartum mothers’          perceptions of readiness for discharge after birth.  JOGNN, 38, 406-417.

Weiss, M.E., Yakusheva, O, & Bobay, K.L.  (2010). Nurse and patient perceptions of       discharge readiness in relation to post-discharge utilization. Medical Care, 48(5), 482-   486.

Weiss, M., Yakusheva, O., & Bobay, K. (2011). Quality and cost analysis of nurse staffing, discharge preparation, and post-discharge utilization. Health Services Research,       46(5), 1473-1494. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6773.2011.01267.x

Weiss, M.E., Costa, L., Yakusheva, O., & Bobay. K. (2014). Validation of patient and nurse short forms of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale and their relationship to return to the hospital. Health Services Research, 49(1), 304-317. DOI:10.1111/1475-6773.12092.

Mabire, C., Coffey, A., & Weiss, M. (2015). Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale for Older People: development and psychometric testing from three countries. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 71(11), 2686–2696.

Bobay, K.L., Weiss, M.E., Oswald, D., & Yakusheva, O. (2018). Validation of the Registered Nurse Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RN-RHDS). Nursing Research, 67(4), 305-313. DOI: 10.1097/NNR.0000000000000293.

Akın, B., & Şahingeri, M. (2010). Validity and reliability of Turkish version of readiness for hospital discharge scale–new mother form (RHD-NMF). Journal of Anatolia Nursing and Health Sciences, 13(1), 7–14. (in Turkish)

Aldughmi, O., Bobay, K.L., Bekhet, A.K., Sedgewick, G., & Weiss, M.E. (in press) Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric evaluation of the Arabic version of the Patient-Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale. Journal of Nursing Measurement.

Aslan, M. (2020). Turkish Validity and Reliability of Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale- Adult- Nurse Assessment Short Form. Journal of Health and Nursing Management, 7(2),  202-214; https://dx.doi.org/10.5222/SHYD.2020.32486

Chen, Y., & Bai, J. (2017). Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale-Parent Form in parents of preterm infants. International journal of nursing sciences, 4(2), 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2017.01.009

Hariati, S., McKenna, L., Lusmilasari, L., Reisenhofer, S., Sutomo, R., Febriani, A., & Arsyad, D. S. (2020). Translation, Adaptation and Psychometric Validation of the Indonesian Version of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale for Parents of Low Birth Weight Infants. Journal of pediatric nursing, 54, e97–e104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2020.05.010

Kaya S, Sain Guven G, Teleş M, et al. Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the readiness for hospital discharge scale/short form. J Nurs Manag. 2018;26:295–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12547

Lin YH, Kao CC, Huang AM, Chi MT. Chou FH [Psychometric testing of the chinese version of the readiness for hospital discharge scale]. Hu Li Za Zhi. 2014;61:56–65.

Mabire, C., Lecerf, T., Büla, C., Morin, D., Blanc, G., & Goulet, C. (2015). Translation and psychometric evaluation of a French version of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 24(19–20), 2983–2992

Malagon-Maldonado, G., Hiner, J.B., & Lanciers, M. (2015). Broadening the horizons on predictors of discharge teaching, discharge readiness, and postdischarge outcomes. JOGNN, 44 (Supplement 1), S58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1552-6909.12628

Nagorska, M., Darmochwal-Kolarz, D.(2019). The adaptation of Polish version of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS) for postpartum mothers. Ginekologiapolska,90(7),376-380.

Rio L, Tenthorey C, Ramelet AS. Unplanned postdischarge healthcare utilisation, discharge readiness, and perceived quality of teaching in mothers of neonates hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit: A descriptive and correlational study. Aust Crit Care. 2021 Jan;34(1):9-14. doi: 10.1016/j.aucc.2020.07.001.

Salmani, N., Marvast, M.Z., Kahdouei,^, S., & Weiss, M.E. (2020). Adaptation of the parent readiness for hospital discharge scale with Iranian mothers of preterm infants discharged from the NICU. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(23-24), 4544-4553. Doi:10.1111/jocn.15479

Siqueira, T.H., Vila, V.S.C., & Weiss, M.E. (2018) Cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument Readiness For Hospital Discharge Scale - Adult Form Revista Brasileira Enfermagem (Rev Bras Enferm) [Internet]. 2018;71(3):983-991. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2017-0241

Sriprasong, S., Hanucharurnkul, S., Panpukdee, O., Krittayaphong, R., Pongthavornkamol, K., &Vorapongsathorn, T. (2009). Functional Status Model: An Empirical Test among Discharged Acute Myocardial Infarction Patients. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 13(4), 268-284.

Retrieved from https://he02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/PRIJNR/article/view/6472.

Wang, B.H., Wang, H., Wang, C., et al. (2016) Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Quality of Discharge Teaching Scale. Chinese Journal of Nursing, 51, 753-756

Zhao, H., Feng, X., Yu, R., Gu, D., & Ji, X. (2016). Validation of the Chinese version of the readiness for hospital discharge scale on patients who have undergone laryngectomy. Journal of Nursing Research, 24(4), 321–328