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ABSTRACT: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) plays an important role in the primary care system in many places, but research evidence on its effectiveness is largely lacking. The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness between TCM and Western medicine (WM) consultations in primary care.
To evaluate whether medical consultations could improve the quality of life and health condition of patients in primary care and to find out whether there was any difference in the effectiveness bewteen TCM and WM.
This was a prospective, longitudinal study on 290 patients of one TCM public and 841 patients of two WM general outpatient clinics (GOPC) in Hong Kong when they consulted for an episodic illness.
All patients attending a TCM GOPC in TWH, and the two WM GOPC (TWH and ALC), who fullfilled the inclusion criteria were invited to participate. Each patient answered a structured questionnaire on the presenting complaint, socio-demography, chronic morbidity and service utilization, the Chinese Quality of Life instrument (ChQOL) and the SF-36V2 Health Survey immediately before and two weeks after the doctor consultation. The Global Rating on change Scale (GRS) was also administered in the week 2 assessment.
The primary outcomes were changes in the ChQOL and SF-36V2 HRQOL scores. Secondary outcomes included the GRS score. The significance of the change within individual were tested by paired t-tests. The differences in change in scores between WM and TCM were tested by independent sample-t-tests or chi-square, as appropriate. Multivariate regresions were used to determine the independent effect of type of medicine on the change in HRQOL scores.
Mean ChQOL and SF-36V2 scores of subjects improved significantly two weeks after TCM or WM consultations in all domains except for the Physical form domain of ChQOL. The greatest improvements were found in the SF-36V2 physical-health related domains. 78% TCM clinics and 71% of subjects WM clinics reported an improvement in GRS. The proportion of subjects who had improvement in HRQOL scores were lower among subjects consulting the WM clinic (72.3%) than those consulting TCM clinics (100%) but the difference was not significant after correction for baseline scores.
Both TCM and WM consultations were associated with significant improvement in HRQOL in over 90% of patients. There was no singificant difference between the effectiveness of TCM and WM consultations. The results support the role of TCM as an alternative primary care service in Hong Kong.
Complementary therapies in medicine 10/2011; 19(5):264-75. · 1.95 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The Chinese Quality of Life Measure (ChQOL) had only been validated on a small number of selected subjects in Hong Kong and had never been tested in the Western medicine (WM) primary care setting.
To test the psychometrics properties of ChQOL(HK version) in both TCM and WM general outpatient clinics.
Three samples of Chinese adult patients [(1) 569 consulting TCM clinics for episodic illnesses; (2) 524 consulting WM clinics for episodic illnesses; (3) 205 consulting WM clinics for chronic disease follow-up] in Hong Kong were invited to complete the ChQOL(HK version) and the SF-36 Health Survey during their consultations and 2 weeks after consultations. The scaling assumptions, factor structure, convergent construct validity, reliability, responsiveness, and discriminatory power of the ChQOL were evaluated.
Majority of items satisfied the scaling assumptions. A two instead of 3-factor structure was found with physical form and emotion facets loading on one factor. Convergent construct validity was confirmed with moderate correlations with SF-36 scores. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were satisfactory. The ChQOL(HK version) was able to detect significant improvements 2 weeks after consultations, and it was able to discriminate between groups with different illness severity, age, and sex.
The ChQOL(HK version) was shown to have satisfactory validity, reliability, discriminatory power, and responsiveness in both TCM and Western medicine primary care settings. The validity of the 3-domain scaling structure needs further evaluation.
Quality of Life Research 08/2011; 21(5):873-86. · 2.30 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) was developed to measure patients' enablement, which is an indicator of the effectiveness of a primary care consultation; however, to date, the PEI has not been tested in Asian populations.
The purpose of this study is to test the acceptability, validity, reliability and other psychometric properties of a Chinese [Hong Kong (HK)] translation of the PEI in Chinese patients in Hong Kong and whether these properties would be affected by different timing of administration.
A Chinese (HK) translation of the PEI was developed by iterative forward-backward translations and the content validity was assessed by a cognitive debriefing interview with 10 Chinese patients. It was then administered to 152 adult patients attending a government-funded primary care clinic in Hong Kong both immediately after the consultation and 2-3 weeks later by telephone. Internal construct validity was assessed by item-scale correlations and factor analysis, test-retest reliability was assessed by intraclass correlation (ICC) and sensitivity was assessed by known group comparison.
The Chinese (HK) PEI was semantically equivalent to the original PEI for all items. Acceptability of the PEI was high with 83.1% response and 100% completion rates. Statistical analyses showed no difference between test and retest means as well as good reproducibility (ICC 0.75). Internal reliability determined by Cronbach's alpha was >0.8 irrespective of timing of administration. Scale construct validity was confirmed by strong (r>0.4) item-scale correlations and resumed to a one-factor hypothesized structure. PEI scores were significantly higher in younger patients supporting sensitivity. There was no significant difference in the psychometric properties or scores between the assessment results from immediately after and 2-weeks post-consultation.
A Chinese (HK) translation of the PEI equivalent to the original is now available for application to Chinese populations. Pilot testing supported its acceptability, validity, reliability and sensitivity. Further studies to confirm its construct validity and responsiveness will help to establish the Chinese (HK) PEI as an outcome measure of the effectiveness of primary care consultations in Chinese patients.
Family Practice 08/2010; 27(4):395-403. · 1.50 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Content validity is crucial in quality of life instrument development but there is very little literature on this in Chinese culture. The Chinese Quality of Life Instrument (ChQOL) was developed in Mainland China to capture the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) concepts specific to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The aim of this study was to evaluate the content validity of ChQOL in a Chinese population whose spoken dialect and health-care system are different from those of Mainland China to find out whether the instrument is generalizable.
8 TCM practitioners and 10 patients rated the clarity, relevance and appropriateness of each of the 50 items of the ChQOL (HK version), and completed qualitative cognitive debriefing interviews.
The content of ChQOL was rated valid by TCM practitioners with CVIs on clarity, relevance and appropriateness ranging from 80 to 100%. 49 out of 50 items were well understood by patients, but 12 items had CVI on relevance and 5 items had CVI on appropriateness lower than 70% among patients. After reviewing the patients and TCM practitioners' opinions, revisions were made for three items (2, 8 and 29) to form the ChQOL (HK version)-2008. In general, the ChQOL was found to be too long which called for shorter version.
The content of ChQOL was shown to be really valid in the context of Chinese Medicine for Cantonese speaking Chinese. There was some discrepancy between the judgments of TCM practitioners and patients indicating the importance of evaluation by both experts and lay persons.
Complementary therapies in medicine 02/2009; 17(1):29-36. · 1.95 Impact Factor
