Clinical Epidemiological Investigation of TCM Syndrome in Depression Patients

[Objective] To explore main TCM syndromes in depression in order to provide the foundation for syndrome differentiation treatment. [Methods] The 487 patients were interviewed with the self-designed questionnaire of TCM syndromes. All of the interviews were carried out in five different clinical places with same method at the same time. During each interview,the investigators collected sufficient information about each patient according to the designed questionnaire. Based on the recorded information,the investigators can determine the initial syndromes of TCM. Finally,the syndromes of TCM were further determined by specialists. [Results] The top 10 TCM syndromes are liver stagnation causing spleenic deficiency(25.7%),liver-qi stagnation(22.8%),heart-spleen deficiency(12.5%),kidney-yang deficiency(9.1%),liver-kidney yin-deficiency(5.5%),heart-gallbladder-qi deficiency(5.1%),qi stagnation blood stasis(4.7%),heart-kidney disharmony(3.5%),gallbladder stagnation phlegm disturbance(3.3%),and yin-yang deficiency(2.9%). The percentage of Qi-ji disorder is 56.5% in the all syndromes based on the first ten syndromes. [Conclusions] From the point of view of zang-fu,depression involves heart,liver,spleen and kidney et al. The properties of the disease include sthenia syndrome and deficient syndrome. And both happen at the same time. If the syndrome is from the point of view of basic pathogenesis,the main syndrome characteristic is Qi-Ji disorder.