Objective      To develop a therapeutic adherence scale for hypertensive patients and evaluate reliability and validity of the scale.     Methods      The original item pool was formulated through literature review and in-depth interview. After research group discussion and expert evaluation

a pre-scale was developed. A total of 404 hypertensive patients from 3 community health service centers and 3 grade-A teaching hospitals were selected by purposive sampling were subjected and finished the scale test. Exploratory factor analysis and correlation analysis was used to examine the reliability and validity of this scale.     Results     Four common factors extracted by exploratory factor analysis had well correspondence between the scale construction and the theoretical construction. Factor loading was ranged from 0.494 to 0.890 for each item. The correlation coefficients of total scores and each factor were 0.681

0.647

0.736 and 0.421

respectively (P0.01）. The total scores of the scale was significantly associated with blood pressure control （P0.01）. The Cronbach α of the total scale was 0.862

and that of subscales were 0. 894

0.866

0.827 and 0.874

respectively. Retest-reliability coefficient of total scale was 0.958

and that of subscales ranged from 0.791 to 0.939.       Conclusion     The newly developed therapeutic adherence scale has good reliability and validity

and can be used as adherence measuring tool for hypertensive patients in future research.