Uses of Traditional Chinese Medicines and Western Medicines in Type 2 Diabetes: Chinese Physician’s Prescribing Preferences and Patterns

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the Chinese physician’s prescribing preferences and patterns of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) and Western Medicines (WMs) in type 2 diabetes, and to reveal the reasons behind, and provide the advice on treating diabetes by WMs and TCMs. Methods: Ten physicians from a general hospital in which both TCMs and WMs medical services were recruited. A face-to-face semi-structured interview was conducted to collect the information and followed by thematic analysis. The prescriptions were collected from 412 diabetes patients’ medical records followed by a content analysis. Results: From the interview, both TCM and WM physicians agreed that WMs were more preferable in controlling the blood glucose, while TCMs were usually used in the early stage of type 2 diabetes or to relieve the symptoms and prevent the complications. Prescribing preference was affected by their attitude towards TCMs, education background and experience of the physicians, characteristic of drugs, and the patient’s conditions. In the quantitative study, more than 90% prescriptions contained WMs. TCMs were prescribed in only 33 prescriptions with only 8 of them having TCMs solely, and 25 having both TCMs and WMs. The qualitative and quantitative results were consistent.  Conclusion: WMs were used as a first-line diabetes treatment. To increase the use of TCMs, improvement in physician experiences and development of more effective TCM products were required.