Introduction: COPD affects the quality of a patient’s life and leads to death. Identifying TCM symptoms and clinical patterns proportions in the community will make diagnosis and treatment more effective. In Vietnam, there were no epidemiological documents about COPD in TCM. Therefore, this study wished to survey stable COPD patients to find out the proportions of symptoms and patterns in TCM to create a basis for further practice.
Methods: The survey was conducted as a descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants were stable COPD outpatients at the Clinic and respiratory function test of the University Medical Center HCMC from September to December 2018. According to the survey form based on the TCM diagnostic criteria, the proportions of symptoms and patterns were recorded.
Results: After three months, 116 patients were recruited. The proportions of 30 TCM symptoms and signs were recorded. The proportions of patients were as follows: 80.17% met Lung qi deficiency, 76.72% for Lung-kidney qi deficiency, 53.45% for Lung-kidney qi and yin deficiency, 47.41% for Lung-spleen qi deficiency, and 2.59% for not meeting any of the diagnostic criteria. Patterns were overlapping in the same patients.
Conclusions: All TCM symptoms and patterns in the diagnostic criteria appeared in COPD patients. The deficiency of the Lung and Kidney was the most common. Most patients were classified into many different patterns with multi organs damage. More multicenter studies with bigger participants numbers are suggested.
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