Scheid, V., Tuffrey, V. and Bovey, M. 2017. Chinese herbal medicine for treating menopausal symptoms in London women: developing a good practice protocol via the factor analysis of prescribing patterns in a clinical study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. 32, pp. 33-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2017.03.008
| Title | Chinese herbal medicine for treating menopausal symptoms in London women: developing a good practice protocol via the factor analysis of prescribing patterns in a clinical study |
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| Authors | Scheid, V., Tuffrey, V. and Bovey, M. |
| Abstract | The objective of the study described in this paper was to define Chinese medicine formula patterns for the treatment of menopausal women in London. These formula patterns are intended to become best practice guidelines for a future pragmatic randomised controlled trial with the ultimate goal of evaluating the possibility of integrating Chinese medicine treatment strategies for menopausal symptoms into the UK National Health Service. Data from a clinical study that had demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicine in treating 117 perimenopausal women at the Westminster University Polyclinic in London was analysed for symptom occurrence and herb use. The frequency of occurrence of different presenting symptoms and the frequency of use of individual herbs is described, and the patterns of combined herb use and the correlations between these patterns and the presenting symptoms is analysed by means of factor analysis. Treating these use patterns as Chinese herbal medicine formulas, five distinctive formula patterns emerged in the course of this study. While there is some overlap between these formulas and their associated symptom patterns and those described in Chinese medicine textbooks, some formula patterns appear to be unique to London women. This indicates that best practice guidelines for the Chinese medicine treatment of menopausal symptoms, which have been shown to vary cross-culturally, need to be derived from local clinical practice. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the methods – action based clinical study plus factor analysis – we employed to this end. |
| Keywords | menopause; Chinese medicine; factor analysis; good practice guidelines |
| Journal | Complementary Therapies in Medicine |
| Journal citation | 32, pp. 33-40 |
| ISSN | 0965-2299 |
| Year | 2017 |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Accepted author manuscript | |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2017.03.008 |
| Publication dates | |
| Published online | 18 Mar 2017 |
| Published | 18 Mar 2017 |
| Funder | Department of Health |