Abstract
Background Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) body constitution has been studied in many diseases, but few have focused on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and particularly their association with disease-specific quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association of TCM body constitution and QoL in female patients with SLE. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on adult female patients with a clinician-confirmed diagnosis of SLE in a regional hospital in Taiwan. TCM body constitution types were determined using the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ). Disease-specific QoL of the participants was assessed using the LupusQoL. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to assess the associations between TCM body constitution types with the score of each of the eight domains of LupusQoL and between the numbers of multiple unbalanced body constitution types and score of each of the eight domains of LupusQoL. Results Of the 317 female patients with SLE, 22 (6.9%) were classified to have a gentleness balanced body constitution type. Among the remaining 295 patients with unbalanced body constitution types, Qi-deficiency was the most common (64.4%), followed by Yin-deficiency (57.6%). Multiple linear regression analyses showed that Qi-deficiency was significantly associated with the emotional, pain, and fatigue domains of the LupusQoL, whereas Yin-deficiency was significantly associated with the emotional and fatigue domains of the LupusQoL. In addition, all domains of the LupusQoL showed a general pattern of poorer QoL with increasing numbers of unbalanced body constitution types. Conclusions Different TCM body constitution types were significantly associated with various domains of the LupusQoL. A high prevalence of multiple body constitution types in patients with SLE was observed. A consistent pattern of poorer LupusQoL with increasing numbers of unbalanced body constitution types was evident.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a system of medicine embedded in a complex conceptual framework that guides health maintenance and disease treatment
A recent review study based on five electronic literature databases, in both English and Chinese, identified 1639 clinical studies that evaluated the association between TCM body constitutions and various diseases
Because body constitution with more than one type is commonly observed in clinical settings, we further classified our patients according to the number of unbalanced body constitution types (Table 3)
Summary
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a system of medicine embedded in a complex conceptual framework that guides health maintenance and disease treatment. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) body constitution has been studied in many diseases, but few have focused on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and their association with disease-specific quality of life (QoL). Erefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association of TCM body constitution and QoL in female patients with SLE. TCM body constitution types were determined using the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ). Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to assess the associations between TCM body constitution types with the score of each of the eight domains of LupusQoL and between the numbers of multiple unbalanced body constitution types and score of each of the eight domains of LupusQoL. All domains of the LupusQoL showed a general pattern of poorer QoL with increasing numbers of unbalanced body constitution types. A consistent pattern of poorer LupusQoL with increasing numbers of unbalanced body constitution types was evident
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