The development of the knee osteoarthritis TCM syndrome evaluation scale as the Patient-Reported Outcome / 国际中医中药杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To develop the knee osteoarthritis (KOA) TCM syndrome evaluation scale. Methods Resrarch team collected subjective symptoms from all kinds of syndrome types of KOA and classified the subjective symptoms, which formed the first version of item pool containing 24 subjective symptoms. Expert questionnaires were conducted to calculate the weight coefficient of items, and formed the item pool of the Knee Osteoarthritis TCM Syndrome Evaluation Scale. According to the patient's attention to the 11 items, the items were weighted.Results The Knee Osteoarthritis TCM Syndrome Evaluation Scale contained 11 items, including pain, swelling and stiffness with different weighted scores.Conclusions The Knee Osteoarthritis TCM Syndrome Evaluation Scale were introduced to assess the KOA outcomes on the basis of TCM syndromes. It showed the characteristic of TCM and TCM syndrome.It could provide an objective and standardized measurement for TCM treating KOA.