Abstract
Background : According to the rising cases of clinical researches with Traditional Korean Medicine for persistent allergic rhinitis patients, the need for developing and applying Pattern diagnosis instrument has been increasing. Objective : This study was done to investigate and pragmatize the Pattern diagnosis instrument for persistent allergic rhinitis patients launched by KFDA in 2008. Methods : Data was collected by structured survey papers from Korean Medicine doctors participate in the Conference of The Korean Oriental Medical Ophthalmology & Otolaryngology & Dermatology Society in October 2012. We investigated their representative Patterns(변증) of every questions and used the mean results for assuming agreement rates. The importance order of 8 symptom domains for considering Pattern diagnostic steps were also asked and analyzed for inducing importance rates. Finally based on above two results, we developed weight points of each questions by multiplying agrement percents with importance rates. Results : 50 Korean medicine doctors described the informed consent and survey papers. Response agreement rates of each questions of Pattern diagnosis instruments were analyzed and described in Table 2. Comparing the survey results with diagnostic references, matched percent of 肺胃熱 was the 87.9%, 肺氣虛寒 was 62.5%, 肺脾氣虛 was 62.5% and 腎元虧虛 was 50%. Mean importance rates of rhinorrhea was 7.28, otoscope diagnosis 5.12, obstruction 5.04, sneeze 4.82, symptom duration 4.63, other body condition 3.54, tongue diagnosis 3.02, nasal pruritus 2.86, accordingly. Final importance rates of each questions were assumed, and the range of them was from 1.60 to 4.72, which were listed in Table 5. Conclusion : These results might provide the rational backgrounds and practical methods for developing and utilizing methods of Pattern diagnosis questionnaire for perennial allergic rhinitis.
