Quantifying Liver Stagnation Spleen Deficiency Pattern for Diarrhea Predominate Irritable Bowel Syndromes Using...

Area of Science:

• Integrative Medicine
• Psychometrics
• Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

Background:

• Quantifying the severity of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) patterns presents a challenge.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the complexity of TCM pattern differentiation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel multidimensional approach for quantifying TCM pattern severity.
• To establish a reliable scale for assessing the 'liver stagnation spleen deficiency' pattern.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a scale and theoretical models based on the 'liver stagnation spleen deficiency' pattern definition.
• Validation using cross-sectional clinical data from 344 Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Diarrhea (IBS-D) patients.
• Application of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) for psychometric evaluation.

Main Results:

• The 9-item scale demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.745) and identified two latent traits.
• The multidimensional model showed a significant goodness of fit, outperforming the unidimensional model.
• Items exhibited adequate discrimination, with specific syndromes mapping to 'liver stagnation' and 'spleen deficiency' factors. The scale is most effective for moderate to high severity levels.

Conclusions:

• Multidimensional analysis, grounded in theoretical models, offers a rational and effective method for quantifying TCM pattern severity.
• This approach enhances the precision and validity of TCM pattern assessment.