Medical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, 1672 Yuseongdae-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:209345. doi: 10.1155/2012/209345. Epub 2012 Feb 28.
Observation of the tongue, also known as tongue diagnosis, is an important procedure in diagnosis by inspection in Traditional Korean medicine (TKM). We investigated the reliability of TKM tongue diagnosis in stroke patients by evaluating interobserver reliability regarding tongue indicators as part of the project named the Fundamental Study for the Standardization and Objectification of Pattern Identification in TKM for Stroke (SOPI-Stroke). A total of 658 patients with stroke admitted to 9 oriental medical university hospitals participated. Each patient was independently seen by two experts from the same department for an examination of the status of the tongue. Interobserver agreement about subjects regarding pattern identification with the same opinion between the raters (n = 451) was generally high, ranging from "moderate" to "excellent". Interobserver agreement was nearly perfect for certain signs of special tongue appearance (mirror, spotted, and bluish purple), poor for one of the tongue colors (pale) and moderate for others. Clinicians displayed measurable agreement regarding tongue indicators via both observation and pattern identification consistency. However, interobserver reliability regarding tongue color and fur quality was relatively low. Therefore, it is necessary to improve objectivity and reproducibility of tongue diagnosis through the development of detail-oriented criteria and enhanced training of clinicians.
舌诊观察,也被称为舌诊,是传统韩国医学(TKM)望诊诊断的重要程序。我们通过评估舌象指标的观察者间可靠性,来调查 TKM 舌诊在中风患者中的可靠性,这是名为“中风 TKM 辨证规范化和客观化基础研究(SOPI-Stroke)”的项目的一部分。共有 658 名中风患者入住 9 所东方医学大学医院参与研究。每位患者均由来自同一科室的两位专家独立进行舌诊检查。对于具有相同意见的观察者(n=451)的主体的辨证一致性,观察者间的一致性通常较高,范围从“中度”到“优秀”。特殊舌象的某些特征(镜面、斑点和蓝紫色)的观察者间一致性几乎是完美的,一种舌色(苍白)较差,其他的则为中度。临床医生通过观察和辨证一致性来显示舌象指标的可衡量的一致性。然而,舌色和舌苔质量的观察者间可靠性相对较低。因此,有必要通过制定注重细节的标准和加强临床医生的培训,来提高舌诊的客观性和可重复性。