Traditional Chinese Medicine Use among Patients with Psoriasis in Taiwan: A Nationwide Population-Based Study

Table 1

Demographic characteristics of TCM and non-TCM users among patients with psoriasis from 2000 to 2010 in Taiwan.

Variable	Non-TCM users		TCM users		value
		(%)		(%)
Number of cases	8426	29.6	20084	70.4
Sex					<0.0001
Female	3457	41.0	11035	54.9
Male	4969	59.0	9049	45.1
Age, y					<0.0001
<25	3560	42.3	9601	47.8
25–35	1275	15.1	3681	18.3
35–65	2451	29.1	5554	27.7
≧65	1140	13.5	1248	6.2
Mean (SD)	34.5 (22.7)		30.0 (18.7)		<0.0001
Occupation					<0.0001
White collar	4716	56.0	11892	59.2
Blue collar	2475	29.4	5805	28.9
Others	1235	14.7	2387	11.9
Urbanization					0.0090
1 (highest)	2487	29.5	5992	29.8
2	2467	29.3	6007	29.9
3	1514	18.0	3773	18.8
4+ (lowest)	1958	23.2	4312	21.5
Interval between the diagnosis of psoriasis and the first visit to a TCM clinic, months, median (IQR)			12.0 (28.4)

Chi-square test; Student’s -test.
White collar: civil services, institution workers, enterprise, business, and industrial administration personnel. Blue collar: farmers, fishermen, vendors, and industrial laborers. Others: retired, unemployed and low-income populations.