OBJECTIVES: Research on the effects of an intervention on hospital length of stay and discharge are often confounded by socio-economic factors unrelated to the intervention. The Readiness for Discharge Questionnaire (RDQ) is a newly developed tool designed to assess readiness for discharge of inpatients with schizophrenia, independent of socio-economic factors. This study examined the psychometric properties of the RDQ. METHODS: The RDQ consists of six items assessing suicidality/homicidality, control of aggression/impulsivity, activities of daily living, medication-taking, delusions/hallucinations interfering with functioning and global clinical status. A final yes/no question assesses readiness for discharge. Data from a pilot study (n=149) and a large randomized double-blind study (n=382) were used to examine test-retest reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness. A third study (32 raters, six cases) provided data on content validity and inter-rater reliability. RESULTS: The inter-rater reliability was high for all items of the RDQ (reliability coefficient >0.9) and moderate/high for the readiness for discharge status (84% agreement, kappa 0.39, polychoric correlation 0.81). Test-retest reliability was also high for all items of the RDQ (reliability coefficient >0.9) and the readiness for discharge status (tetrachoric correlation 0.82). Overall, 84% of the raters agreed that the RDQ was useful in assessing patients' readiness for discharge. Evidence of good construct validity included significant correlations with PANSS total and factor scores, and a significant relationship with actual discharge. Significantly more patients with symptom improvement were judged ready for discharge (compared to those without symptom improvement), indicating that the RDQ was responsive to change over time. CONCLUSIONS: The RDQ has favorable reliability and validity properties, and is an easy to use instrument for assessing readiness for discharge of inpatients with schizophrenia. The RDQ can be a useful tool in research settings, as it provides a measure of the effects of an intervention on discharge, independent of socio-economic influences.