Effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in primary care

AIMS: To evaluate whether Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) consultation can significantly improve the quality of life of patients in primary care and to find out whether the Chinese Quality of Life instrument (ChQOL) is more responsive than Short form-36 (SF-36) in detecting the treatment effect of TCM. METHODS: This is a prospective, longitudinal study on 361 patients who consulted the TCM outpatient clinic for the first time. Methods: New patients at the clinic were recruited. Each patient was asked to complete a structured questionnaire on ChQOL and the SF-36 before the consultation with the TCM practitioner. Each subject was followed up after two weeks when he/she were re-assessed by the TCM practitioner and completed the ChQOL, SF-36 again and a global rating on change of the condition. The primary outcome measure was the change in scores in ChQOL and SF-36 scores after the TCM consultation. The ChQOL and SF-36 scores were correlated with the TCM practitioner assessment and the subjects' global rating of change. RESULTS: All domains scores of ChQOL and SF-36 of patients were improved forall patients investigated in internal medicine, bone-setting and acupuncture departments of outpatient clinics (p<0.05). In subgroup analysis, the improvement of SF-36 and ChQOL is statistically significant in groups with TCM differential diagnosis of exterior, heart, brain, kidney, meridian and limbs syndromes. The patients global rating is statistically correlated to the Physical component score (PCS) and Body Pain domains of SF-36 and physical form of ChQOL (p<0.01). While only role emotional domain of SF-36 statistically correlated (p