Exploration of influential factors about deficiency constitution of Traditional Chinese Medicine based on...

To find more influencing factors Qi-deficiency constitution of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) using dynamic and comprehensive information.

Because grey relational analysis (GRA) is good at processing incomplete information and has no special requirements for sample size and distribution. We acquired 2122 pieces of valid Qi-deficiency constitution dynamic data after preprocessing, and used GRA combing with χ ² test and multivariate logistic regression analysis to discover and sort the influencing factors of Qi-deficiency constitution.

For the calculation results of GRA, there were 10 (62.5%) aspects whose grey correlation degrees were greater than 0.6. The results of χ ² test showed that all the above 10 aspects were statistically significant with Qi-deficiency constitution. The analysis results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed the following factors were positively correlated with Qi-deficiency constitution: premature birth, sleeping late and getting up early, sleeping late and getting up late, irregular sleeping, sleeping 6.0-6.9 h per day, artificial feeding, female, age at 18-19, and father's age at 18-19 years old when a baby at birth. The following factors were negatively correlated with Qi-deficiency constitution: sleeping 8.0-8.9 h per day and ≥ 9.0 h per day, and age at 30-39 and 40-49 years old.

It is necessary to pay attention to these innate and acquired information of individuals which may lead to Qi-deficiency constitution. And our research also provides a novel methodological thinking for analyzing the influential factors of TCM constitution.