Abstract: Objective: To develop a self-rated scale for knee joint unpleasant symptoms and test its reliability and validity among middle-aged and elderly people. Methods: According to the result of literature review, semi-structured interviews, experts consultations and group meetings, a item pool was established, and the first draft of the scale was developed after two rounds of experts consultations. The scale was administered among 528 middle-aged and elderly people aged ≥45 in Changsha. The reliability and validity of the scale was analyzed by using SPSS 20.0 . Results: The self-ratedscale of knee unpleasant in middle-aged and elderly people included 21 items. The results of theexploratory factor analysis indicated two factors, named self-conscious symptoms and self-examination performance, explaining 64.983% of the cumulative variance. The result of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the fit index χ2, df, χ2/df, RMSEA, CFI, GFI, AGFI, NFI, IFI, TLI were 729.238, 188, 3.879, 0.098, 0.888, 0.781, 0.730, 0.855, 0.888,0.875, respectively. The I-CVI of the scale was 0.777-1.000, S-CVI/Ave was 0.891.the correlation coefficient between the score of each dimension score and the total scale was 0.707-0.980. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the total scale was 0.949, split-half reliability was 0.888 and the test-retest reliability was 0.914. Conclusion: The self-rated Scale for Knee Joint Unpleasant Symptoms has good reliability and validity in middle-aged and elderly people, which can be applied to investigate the unpleasant symptoms of knee joint in middle-aged and elderly people in China.

Key words: middle-aged and elderly people; knee joint; unpleasant symptoms; reliability; validity