Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
J Altern Complement Med. 2013 Jan;19(1):1-8. doi: 10.1089/acm.2011.0776. Epub 2012 Sep 6.
Increasing Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have been developed in China, and it is not clear about the real application in the clinical studies. This study aimed to analyze the adoption of CPGs for hypertension using TCM therapy by investigating the clinical research literature on representative CPGs for TCM in China.
All CPGs on TCM for hypertension were collected and investigated from all of the clinical research literature published in China from January 2005 to December 2010. Ten (10) CPGs on TCM for hypertension were searched and analyzed, collecting data about the issuing organization, date of publication, classification, characteristics, contents, and citation rates.
By the end of December 2008, 10 CPGs on TCM for hypertension were found. Of these guidelines, one was a Chinese national standard, one was a local authority standard, two were professional administration standard, and six were academic association standards. Furthermore, four were compiled under the title of hypertension based on TCM syndrome differentiation and six were only compiled under the title of a TCM syndrome. Of all the research articles (n=695), TCM CPGs were cited in 417 articles (60%). TCM CPGs on hypertension were commonly used as standards for diagnosis and/or outcome measurements. Three hundred and seventy-nine (379) clinical research articles were unclear or inconsistent in their adoption of TCM CPG, accounting for 55% of all clinical articles. Seven (7) categories of inconsistent or unclear citations of TCM CPG were identified, and the total amount of occurrences of seven categories on inconsistent citation was 572.
About 60% publications cited the CPGs for their clinical research, and most of them cited in an inconsistent and unclear way. According to the result, better training of TCM practitioners and improvement of CPG development and adoption are needed.
中国制定了越来越多的中医临床实践指南（CPG），但尚不清楚这些 CPG 在临床研究中的实际应用情况。本研究旨在通过调查中国具有代表性的中医 CPG 的临床研究文献，分析中医治疗高血压的 CPG 的应用情况。
收集并调查了 2005 年 1 月至 2010 年 12 月期间中国发表的所有关于中医治疗高血压的 CPG 的临床研究文献。共检索并分析了 10 个中医治疗高血压的 CPG，收集了指南的发布机构、出版日期、分类、特点、内容和引用率等数据。
截至 2008 年 12 月底，共发现 10 个中医治疗高血压的 CPG。这些指南中，1 个为中国国家标准，1 个为地方标准，2 个为专业管理标准，6 个为学术协会标准。此外，4 个指南以中医证候辨分为基础，6 个仅以中医证候为标题。在所有的研究文章（n=695）中，有 417 篇（60%）引用了中医 CPG。中医 CPG 常用于诊断和/或作为结局测量标准。379 篇（55%）临床研究文章在采用中医 CPG 方面不明确或不一致，7 类不一致或不明确引用中医 CPG 的情况，7 类不一致引用的总次数为 572 次。
约 60%的发表文献引用了 CPG 进行其临床研究，但大多数引用方式不一致和不明确。根据研究结果，需要对中医从业者进行更好的培训，并改进 CPG 的制定和应用。
