In this paper, we prove some multiplicity results for sign-changing solutions of an operator equation in an ordered Banach space. The methods to show the main results of the paper are to associate a fixed point index with a strict upper or lower solution. The results can be applied to a wide variety of boundary value problems to obtain multiplicity results for sign-changing solutions.

The authors consider the boundary value problem with a two-parameter nonhomogeneous multi-point boundary condition $$\begin{array}{c}{u}^{\text{'}\text{'}}+g\left(t\right)f(t,u)=0,t\in (0,1),\\ u\left(0\right)=\alpha u\left(\xi \right)+\lambda ,u\left(1\right)=\beta u\left(\eta \right)+\mu .Criteriafortheexistenceofnontrivialsolutionsoftheproblemareestablished.Thenonlineartermf(t,x)maytakenegativevaluesandmaybeunboundedfrombelow.Conditionsaredeterminedbytherelationshipbetweenthebehavioroff(t,x)/xforxnear0and\pm \infty ,andthesmallestpositivecharacteristicvalueofanassociatedlinearintegraloperator.Theanalysismainlyreliesontopologicaldegreetheory.Thisworkcomplementssomerecentresultsintheliterature.Theresultsareillustratedwithexamples.\end{array}$$