Abstract

Background: Cold and Heat are two important principles in the Eight Principles, reflecting the nature of the disease. Objective: Evaluate the reliability of the abridged Vietnamese version of the Cold and heat pattern identification questionnaire (CHPIQ) and survey some characteristics of cold and heat in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study on 165 patients diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis who came for treatment at Thua Thien Hue Traditional Medicine Hospital. Result: The Vietnamese version of the Cold and heat pattern identification questionnaire has a Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of 0.875 (cold pattern) and 0.930 (heat pattern). In patients with knee osteoarthritis, cold pattern was 55.2%, heat pattern was 26.1%, no cold- heat parttern was 26.1% and combined cold and heat pattern was 3.0%. Conclusion: The Vietnamese version of the Cold and heat pattern identification has high reliability assessed through the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. The majority of patients with knee osteoarthritis have cold pattern, followed by heat pattern and no cold-heat with equal proportions, with low combined cold and heat pattern