Research Article

Enhanced Evidence-Based Chinese Medicine Clinical Practice Guidelines in Hong Kong: A Study Protocol for Three Common Diseases

Table 4

Checklist for reporting CM CPG.

TopicSpecified ItemsDescription

(1) Title(1.1) Title
(1.2) Subheading
Provide an appropriate title including the specified disease’s name using International
Classification of Disease (ICD). Relevant CM disease should be noted in subheading.

(2) Introduction(2.1) Scope
(2.2) Development process
Describe goal of the CM CPG with specific details concerning the targeted users, application of regions and countries, and the key clinical questions. A brief description of development process should be Clearfield.

(3) Background(3.1) Epidemiological details of natural
history in WM
(3.2) Understanding of disease based on
CM theory
Describe epidemiological details (such as incidence, prevalence, and risk factors) and natural history of the relevant diseases in both CM and WM and provide the understanding of disease based on CM theory.

(4) Clinical manifestationsDescribe the clinical features including patient’s history, symptoms, and signs and other relevant information concerning the disease. It is desirable to include both WM and CM perspective.

(5) Diagnostic criteria(5.1) Current Western medical diagnostic criteria
(5.2) CM patterns classification and diagnosis
Describe Western diagnostic criteria and classification of CM pattern including symptoms and signs of each pattern, with the corresponding support data derived from text mining process, survey, and literature evidence.

(6) Intervention(6.1) Basic principle of intervention
(6.2) Herbal medicine treatment
(6.3) Acupuncture treatment
(6.4) Others options of CM treatments
Provide a specific description of the relevant CM interventions incorporating herbal medicine, acupuncture, or other options of CM treatment. Considering operability of CM CPG, detailed information should be provided like acupuncture manipulation.

(7) Methods(7.1) Text mining process
(7.2) Identified clinical evidence
(7.3) Delphi process
(7.4) Synthesizing data
(7.4) Review and consultation process
(7.5) Dissemination
(7.6) Implementation
(7.7) Updating
Describe the basic information of the key steps in development process, including Delphi process (expert selection, basic information of survey and statistics), text mining process,
clinical evidence (search strategy, evaluation of the strengths and quality of evidence, grading of recommendations), synthesizing data process (criteria used in data synthesizing process and synthesizing table), review and consultation process, dissemination, Implementation, and updating plan.

(8) ReferencesProvide all the relevant inferences including literature used as evidence.

(9) AppendicesWorking Group Membership, standardized table evidence and recommendation, and vocabulary.