Chinese Medicine Pediatrics in Taiwan
A study was conducted to examine data sets from the National
Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Two cohorts, each with one
million patients who were randomly sampled from the beneficiaries of the
National Health Insurance Program from January 1 to December 31 in 2005 or
2010, were chosen for analysis. Children who had at least one TCM outpatient
clinical record were defined as TCM users, whereas children who had no TCM
outpatient records were defined as non-TCM users. The demographic data,
treatment modalities and the disease distributions of the pediatric TCM users
were analyzed from two randomly sampled cohorts. Overall, 22% and 22.5% of the
children used TCM in 2005 and 2010, respectively. The utilization rate of TCM
increased with age. Herbal remedies were the most commonly used therapeutic
approach, followed by manipulative therapy and acupuncture. There was an
increasing trend of using herbal remedies (increased from 65.6% to 74.4%) and acupuncture
(increase from 7.5% to 11.4%), but there was a markedly decreased use of
manipulative therapies from 25.6% to 12.3% from 2005 to 2010. There is an
obvious increasing use of TCM due to diseases of the digestive system, skin/subcutaneous
tissue and genitourinary system from 2005 to 2010. A further comparison of the
prevalence rates between TCM and non-TCM visits indicated that allergic
rhinitis, dyspepsia, injury and musculoskeletal diseases, as well as menstrual
disorders, were the main diseases that children tended to visit TCM clinics in
Taiwan. Our nationwide population-based study revealed the high prevalence and
specific usage patterns of TCM in the pediatric population in Taiwan. The
results of this study should provide valuable information for physicians,
parents and the government concerning pediatric healthcare.
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