Frequency and co-prescription pattern of Chinese herbal products for hypertension in Taiwan: a Cohort study

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Yen-Hua Chu¹  Pei-Rung Yang¹  Ching-Yuan Wu²  Wei-Tai Shih³  Pau-Chung Chen⁴ 

[1] Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.6, W. Sec., Jiapu RD., 61363, Puzi City, Chia-Yi County, Taiwan;Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.6, W. Sec., Jiapu RD., 61363, Puzi City, Chia-Yi County, Taiwan;Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Sciences, Chang Gung University, College of Medicine, 83301, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;Kidney and Diabetic Complications Research Team, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, 61363, Chia-Yi County, Taiwan;Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.6, W. Sec., Jiapu RD., 61363, Puzi City, Chia-Yi County, Taiwan;Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, National Taiwan University College of Public Health, 10055, Taipei, Taiwan;Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, National Taiwan University College of Public Health, 10055, Taipei, Taiwan;Department of Public Health, National Taiwan University College of Public Health, 10055, Taipei, Taiwan;Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, 10055, Taipei, Taiwan;

关键词: Complementary and alternative medicine;    Traditional Chinese products;    Hypertension;    National Health Insurance Research Database;    Traditional Chinese medicine;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12906-015-0690-8

 received in 2014-12-26, accepted in 2015-05-21,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChinese herbal products (CHPs) have been frequently used among patients with chronic diseases including hypertension; however, the co-prescription pattern of herbal formulae and single herbs remain uncharacterized. Thus, this large-scale pharmacoepidemiological study evaluated the frequency and co-prescription pattern of CHPs for treating hypertension in Taiwan from 2003 to 2009.MethodsThe database of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) outpatient claims was obtained from the National Health Insurance in Taiwan. Patients with hypertension during study period were defined according to diagnostic codes in the International Classification of Disease Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification. The frequencies and percentages of herbal formula and single herb prescriptions for hypertension were analyzed. We also applied association rules to evaluate the CHPs co-prescription patterns.ResultsThe hypertension cohort included 154,083 patients, 123,240 patients of which (approximately 80 %) had used TCM at least once. In total, 81,582 visits involving CHP prescriptions were hypertension related; Tian-Ma-Gou-Teng-Yin and Dan Shen (Radix Salvia Miltiorrhizae) were the most frequently prescribed herbal formula and single herb, respectively, for treating hypertension.ConclusionsThis study elucidated the utilization pattern of CHPs for treating hypertension. Future studies on the efficacy and safety of these CHPs and on drug–herb interactions are warranted.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Yang et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.