A nationwide population-based study of traditional Chinese medicine usage in children in Taiwan

To characterize the application of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) among pediatric patients.

This study examined data sets from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Two cohorts, each with one million patients who were randomly sampled from the beneficiaries of the National Health Insurance Program from January 1 to December 31 in 2005 or 2010, were chosen for analysis. Children had at least one TCM outpatient clinical record were defined as TCM users, whereas children who had no TCM outpatient records were defined as non-TCM users.

The demographic data, treatment modalities and the disease distributions of the pediatric TCM users were analyzed from two randomly sampled cohorts.

Overall, 22% and 22.5% of the children used TCM in 2005 and 2010, respectively. The utilization rate of TCM increased with age. Herbal remedies were the most commonly used therapeutic approach, followed by manipulative therapy and acupuncture. There was an increasing trend of using herbal remedies (increased from 65.6% to 74.4%) and acupuncture (increase from 7.5% to 11.4%), but there was a markedly decreased use of manipulative therapies from 25.6% to 12.3% from 2005 to 2010. There is an obvious increasing use of TCM due to diseases of the digestive system, skin/subcutaneous tissue and genitourinary system from 2005 to 2010. A further comparison of the prevalence rates between TCM and non-TCM visits indicated that allergic rhinitis, dyspepsia, injury and musculoskeletal diseases, as well as menstrual disorders, were the main diseases that children tended to visit TCM clinics in Taiwan.

Our nationwide population-based study revealed the high prevalence and specific usage patterns of TCM in the pediatric population in Taiwan. The results of this study should provide valuable information for physicians, parents and the government concerning pediatric healthcare.