Objective      To develop a valid and reliable self-rated scale to measure human caring capacity for medical undergraduates

and meanwhile to explore the characteristics of medical undergraduates’ human caring capacity.       Methods      The initial items were generated from an open questionnaire survey

and then item analyses and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to develop the scale. Two weeks after the first testing session

236 students were retested.       Results      The final scale of human caring capacity for undergraduates included 42 items. The scale included altruism

patience

honesty

trust

humility

hope and courage. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the total scale

was 0.899

the test-retest coefficient of the total scale was 0.851

and the split-half reliability was 0.843. Furthermore

the results of undergraduates tested by the scale showed that compared with girls

the score of courage for boys was higher (

P

0.05)

but the boys were lower in the scores of altruism

patience

honesty

trust

humility and hope (

P

0.05

P0.01). The human caring capacity was in a trend of increase along with the students’ grade (

P

0.01).      Conclusion      The scale of human caring capacity for medical undergraduates has a high reliability and a good validity

and can be used in the studies of human caring capacity for medical undergraduates.