Objective To develop a self-management cognition scale for type 2 diabetes patients and to test its reliability and validity. Methods Following the scale development paradigm, an initial version of the Self-Management Cognition Scale for Patients with Type 2 Diabetes was developed based on protection motivation theory. Then a test version was formed after Delphi consultation and pilot survey. Two surveys on type 2 diabetes patients (n=739) were conducted in Nanjing, Jinan, and Shanghai，in order to evaluate there liability and validity of the scale. Results Exploratory factor analysis extracted 5 common factors (severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response costs) from 29 items with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 70.017%. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fitted well (χ2/df=2.763,RMSEA=0.070,NFI=0.905,IFI=0.938,TLI=0.930,CFI=0.937). The Cronbach′s α coefficient of the scale was 0.826，AVE=0.557～0.924. Conclusion The scale has good reliability and validity, which can be used for mea-suring self-management cognition level of type 2 diabetes patients.