Development of the Short-Form Yin Deficiency Scale Using Three Item Reduction Approaches

Table 1

The 27-item Yin Deficiency Scale.

Concept	Number	Item	Condition	Contribution score for yin deficiency (point)
Cough	Q1	I have a cough in the night	Night cough	5.96
	Q2	My cough lasts for a long time	Persistent cough	5.61
	Q3	I have a cough in the afternoon	Afternoon cough	4.88
Fever	Q4	I have a fever in the afternoon	Afternoon fever	5.22
	Q5	I have a flush in the afternoon	Afternoon flush	4.96
	Q6	I have a dry mouth	Dry mouth	4.88
	Q7	I have a fever in the night	Night fever	5.33
Pain-weakness	Q8	I feel heavy or weak in my lower limbs	Weakness of the lower limbs	4.59
	Q9	I feel dull pain in my ankle or knee	Dull pain of the ankle or knee	4.61
	Q10	I feel low back pain	Low back pain	5.40
Urine	Q11	I wake to urinate in the night	Wake due to night urination	5.25
	Q12	I urinate frequently	Frequent urination	5.07
	Q13	I feel a residual urine	Residual urine	4.44
	Q14	I cannot contain my urine	Difficulty in containing the urine	4.84
Fatigue	Q15	I feel tired in the morning	Morning fatigue	5.33
	Q16	I am susceptible of heat and cold	Susceptibility of heat and cold	6.07
	Q17	I feel tired or languid	Fatigue	4.96
Feet-bone steaming	Q18	My heel is dry and cracked	Dry and cracked heel	5.37
	Q19	I have an itch in the night	Night itch	5.37
	Q20	I feel dull pain in my heel	Dull pain of the heel	5.11
	Q21	I feel hot deep in the body, e.g., in the bone	Bone steaming	5.38
	Q22	My soles are hot in the night	Night hot soles	6.00
Kidney-liver deficiency	Q23	I sweat during sleep	Sweating during sleep	5.33
	Q24	My ear rings	Tinnitus	5.29
Skin-hair	Q25	My hair falls out	Hair loss	4.77
	Q26	I have a rough skin	Rough skin	5.03
	Q27	My urine color is dark yellow	Dark yellow urine	4.74

Contribution scores were previously reported through two iterations of the Delphi method [27].