Objective: To explore the construct validity of the self-management support scale (SMSS) in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) and determine its effectiveness in measuring kidney transplant recipients self-management support in China.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 265 renal transplant recipients who followed up at the outpatient department of three general hospitals from October 2020 to March 2021. Measurement tools include: self-designed general situation questionnaire and Self-Management Support Scale. We adopt confirmatory factor analysis to measure the construct validity of the SMSS. The data were analyzed by using AMOS Version 26. All the statistical tests were used two-sided test, with p < 0.05 as statistically significant.

Results: (1) General data: the range of age was 21-76 years old, with an average of (46.00 ± 10.80) years. Men accounted for 73%. Most of them lived in cities and towns (85.5%), and used urban medical insurance payment (80.5%). (2) The confirmatory factor analysis model reached a good fit, with χ2 = 480.330, χ2/df= 2.332, p < .001; CFI = 0.901; TLI = 0.889; RMSEA = 0.071, with 90% confidence interval (0.063–0.079); SRMR = 0.065.; SRMR = 0.065. With all the composite reliability(CR) above 0.9 and all the average of variance extracted(AVE) above 0.6.

Conclusion: In this first validation study of the instrument, the proposed model largely appears to approximate to a good fit. The SMSS can be used in the measurement of self-management support of renal transplant recipients.

Keywords: kidney transplant recipients; self-management support; construct validity; confirmatory factor analysis.