Views on traditional Chinese medicine amongst Chinese population: a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies
Background Health‐care professionals worldwide have started to appreciate patients' perspectives on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) particularly given its popularity. However, cultural perspectives may vary and it may not be possible to apply research findings on the use...
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Published in | Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy Vol. 17; no. 5; pp. 622 - 636 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
John Wiley and Sons Inc
01.10.2014
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Background
Health‐care professionals worldwide have started to appreciate patients' perspectives on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) particularly given its popularity. However, cultural perspectives may vary and it may not be possible to apply research findings on the use of CAM from the west to the east.
Objective
This systematic review aims to synthesize usage patterns of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) amongst Chinese populations in different parts of the world and explore potential geographical variations.
Search strategy
Six international and four Chinese databases were searched, and manual searches of relevant monographs and government publications were carried out.
Inclusion criteria
Quantitative, qualitative or mixed‐method research that aimed to investigate Chinese patients' perception of, and perspectives on, TCM was included.
Data extraction and synthesis
For each study included, texts under the headings of ‘results’ or ‘findings’ were extracted and subjected to analysis. A thematic synthesis approach was adopted for synthesizing qualitative and quantitative studies.
Main results
Amongst the 28 studies included, twenty were quantitative surveys, six were qualitative studies and two were mixed‐method studies. The overall methodological quality was mediocre. Data synthesis suggested that patients from all regions share a common cultural affinity to TCM and consider it to be an effective complement to western medicine (WM) for treating chronic or serious diseases. However, heterogeneous views on (i) disclosing TCM use to WM doctors and (ii) the potential harm of herbs emerged across different study locations.
Discussion and conclusions
Future research should explore how variation in health systems may influence patients' perception of CAM in different countries. |
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Bibliography: | SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-4 ObjectType-Undefined-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Review-2 ObjectType-Article-3 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 1369-6513 1369-7625 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1369-7625.2012.00794.x |