Objective  To design a visualized self-assessment questionnaire for patients with knee osteoarthritis in order to facilitate patient self-assessment and long-term management of this condition.

  Methods  Several databases including PubMed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched for existing scales on osteoarthritis that reflect patients' complaints, based on which a pool of dimensions and items was generated. Ninety orthopedists were invited to rate the intelligibility, importance, and feasibility of these items. Then an expert consultation meeting consisting of 15 senior orthopedic specialists was convoked to optimize the questionnaire based on the rating results. A pilot investigation was conducted in 77 patients with knee osteoarthritis, from whom opinions and feedback were collected for further optimization of the items and graphs in a following expert consultation meeting to formulate the first draft of the questionnaire.

  Results  The initial pool of items covered 38 items in 3 dimensions, namely, pain, inflammation, and function. The response rate of the 90 orthopedists was 100%, while 26 items were ranked within the top 75% regarding items expression and usage intention. The number of items was streamlined to 16 after the first round of specialist consultation meeting, and further reduced to 14 items in the first draft on the basis of patient feedback, still in the 3 dimensions of pain, inflammation, and function.

  Conclusions  The visualized self-assessment questionnaire for patients with knee osteoarthritis is the first independently developed knee osteoarthritis assessment scale in China. It is a simple, comprehensive, and quantitative self-assessment tool for patients with knee osteoarthritis based on expert and patient opinions, with high feasibility and clinical significance.