Department of Diagnosis and Biofunctional Medicine, School of Oriental Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea.
J Altern Complement Med. 2013 Jan;19(1):50-6. doi: 10.1089/acm.2011.0677. Epub 2012 Sep 5.
Yin Deficiency (YD) is a pathophysiologic pattern that manifests with emaciation, dry mouth, tidal fever, Five Center Heat, night sweats, and malar flushing. The purpose of the present study was to develop and validate a new YD metric, the Yin Deficiency Scale (YDS), to define an optimum cutoff point for the YDS, and to examine the relationships between YD and Cold-Heat patterns.
A total of 169 outpatients and 83 college students were asked to complete the YDS. The college students were also asked to complete the Yin Deficiency Questionnaire (YDQ) and Cold-Heat Questionnaire (CHQ). Twelve clinicians determined whether or not the 169 outpatients had YD. YDS and YDQ data were used to estimate the internal consistency, construct validity, and concurrent validity of the YDS. CHQ data were used to examine the relationships between YDS and CHQ subscale scores. Total YDS scores and the clinicians' diagnoses of the outpatients were used to define an optimum cutoff score for the YDS.
The 27-item YDS had satisfactory internal consistency (α=0.885) and concurrent validity, with correlations between the YDS and YDQ subscale scores. A total of eight factors were extracted in the test of construct validity, using principal component analysis, and the overall variance explained by all factors was 63.1%. Among the eight factors, cough, fever, and skin-related factors were associated only with Heat pattern, whereas pain, urine, and fatigue-related factors were associated with both Cold and Heat patterns. In the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve of the YDS were 73.7%, 84.8%, and 0.875, respectively. The optimum cutoff score was defined as 10 points.
The results of this study suggest that the YDS is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating YD.
阴虚（YD）是一种病理生理模式，表现为消瘦、口干、潮热、五心烦热、盗汗和两颧潮红。本研究旨在开发和验证一种新的阴虚量表（YDS），确定 YDS 的最佳截断点，并研究 YD 与寒-热模式的关系。
共 169 名门诊患者和 83 名大学生完成了 YDS。大学生还完成了阴虚问卷（YDQ）和寒-热问卷（CHQ）。12 名临床医生判断 169 名门诊患者是否存在 YD。使用 YDS 和 YDQ 数据来评估 YDS 的内部一致性、结构效度和同时效度。使用 CHQ 数据来研究 YDS 与 CHQ 子量表得分之间的关系。总 YDS 得分和临床医生对门诊患者的诊断用于定义 YDS 的最佳截断分数。
27 项 YDS 具有良好的内部一致性（α=0.885）和同时效度，与 YDS 和 YDQ 子量表得分之间存在相关性。在结构效度检验中，使用主成分分析提取了 8 个因子，所有因子的总方差解释率为 63.1%。在这 8 个因子中，咳嗽、发热和皮肤相关因素仅与热型相关，而疼痛、尿液和疲劳相关因素与寒-热型均相关。在受试者工作特征曲线分析中，YDS 的灵敏度、特异性和曲线下面积分别为 73.7%、84.8%和 0.875。最佳截断分数定义为 10 分。
本研究结果表明，YDS 是评估 YD 的一种可靠和有效的工具。
