Traditional Chinese medicine prescribed for acute stroke patients: a cross-sectional survey / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate current situation of prescription of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for acute stroke patients.Methods From June 2008 to October 2010,with simple cluster sampling,48 centers were randomly assigned to the intervention group receiving a standardized treatment strategy,and the usual care group without specific recommendations for treatment.No specific recommendations or restrictions of TCM were proposed for both groups.Consecutive hospitalized patients with acute ischemic stroke were recruited in this study.Clinical data and treatment strategy (including TCM) were recorded by trained investigators.The prescription of TCM three months prior to admission and at discharge was recorded and analyzed.The chi-square test was used for analysis of qualitative data.Results Totally 3 664 patients were included in the analysis (1 709 patients in standard care group and 1 955 patients in the usual care group) with male to female ratio 2∶ 1.The difference of distribution of age,sex and education level between the two groups was not statistically significant.One hundred and eighty-seven patients (5.10％) had taken TCM three months prior to admission,81.28％ of them only taking one type of TCM,without significant difference between the two groups.The percentage of patients taking TCM at discharge was significantly increased to 30.65％ for all the patients with higher percentage (38.16％) in the usual care group than that in the standard care group (22.06％).The percentage of using more than one type of TCM was also higher in the usual care group (x2 =141.43,P ＜ 0.01).Totally,112 types of TCM were prescribed at discharge.Conclusions Nearly one third of hospitalized patients with acute stroke were prescribed TCM at discharge,with mostly monotherapy and a great variety.