AbstractObjectives: Social relationships are central in Asian communities. Despite colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence increasing in Asian populations the roles of social activity in facilitating adjustment and optimizing coping resources in Asian peoples remains largely unknown. We derived and validated among Chinese CRC patients, an instrument assessing social relational quality to enable study of these social processes.Methods: Qualitative interviews (n=16) generated 22‐items subsequently administered to 166 Chinese CRC survivors. Principal components analyses identified underlying constructs. The draft instrument, plus measures of optimism, affect, physical symptoms, and perceived social support were administered to a second cohort of 234 newly diagnosed Chinese CRC patients.Results: Three factors were extracted (54.44% of the total variance):Family Intimacy(7 items, 33.08%),Family Commitment(5 items, 14.17%), andFriendships(5 items, 7.19%). All subscales were internally consistent (α=0.75–0.82), exhibiting concurrent validity in negative correlations with anxiety and depression and positive correlations with physical and psychological well‐being. Convergent validity was indicated by significant positive correlations with optimism, and divergent validity by insignificant inverse correlations with physical symptoms and moderate correlations with perceived social support. Hierarchical regressions revealed positive correlations of the three subscales with psychological well‐being, controlling for perceived social support (β=0.13–0.28). Good criterion validity was indicated.Conclusion: The Social Relational Quality Scale is a psychometrically sound self‐report measure of social relational quality among Chinese CRC patients and needs further validation among other Asian groups. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.