Background The care that people with Parkinson’s (PwP) require varies over the course of the disease. A patient perspective on the factors determining care needs over time has been lacking.

Aim 1) To identify the relative importance of factors that affect care needs of PwP from a patient per- spective. 2) To identify whether the relative importance of different factors varies by demographic and clinical characteristics.

Method: 392 PwP completed a 5-point Likert scale to score the importance of 6 different factors that affect care needs. Means scores were obtained and factors were compared by participant age, gender, living alone, disease progression, and presence of co-morbidities.

Results From a patient perspective, mobility was the most important factor for assessing care needs, followed by dexterity, eating and drinking, communication, cognitive function, and mental health. This ranking was constant across demographic and clinical characteristics. However, younger patients, females, those living alone, more progressed patients, and those with co-morbidities tended to produce higher mean scores of importance suggesting a larger impact at an individual level.

Conclusion This study determined which factors patients consider to most affect the care they require, enabling healthcare professionals to provide more personalised care to PwP.