A Need for Standard Data Collection Procedure in Studies on Traditional Chinese Medicine

Abstract

Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners usually base clinical decisions on their own experience and judgment. Although western medicine is now much dependent on objective measurements by medical equipment, in some fields such as in psychology and psychiatry, and in taking clinical information from history and physical examination, subjective measurements are still used. However, the difference is the use of standard data collection procedure. When a CM practitioner bases their collection of clinical information on a theoretical goal, information that fits one’s mind set is of concern and that does not fit one’s aim is subconsciously screened out. With this practice, the clinical information is biased toward a set of diseases and related zhengs in mind. The standardization procedures for clinical data collection can be applied to CM to solve this problem. This chapter will present scientific methods to make standard data collection procedures such as Delphi technique in creating a standard data collection procedure and the tests of its reliability. Objective domain-based technique for questionnaire and checklist design will be discussed. The essential steps in these procedures to ensure objective measurement are the independency of theories and expert opinions and the application of scientific validation methods of the resulting data collection forms. When the results of the studies using the discussed methods confirm the traditional theories, the theoretical foundation of such the disease or zheng in CM is confirmed. When studies consistently disagree with the traditional theories, objective modification of theories makes CM moving forward and gets acceptance by western medicine.