Prescription patterns of herbal medicine for menopausal disorders in major Korean medicine hospitals: a multicenter retrospective study.

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to obtain the symptom, prescription and therapeutic patterns for the treatment of patients with menopausal syndrome in major Korean medicine (KM) hospitals.

METHODS

We used a retrospective chart review of climacteric disorder and postmenopausal syndrome patients by examining medical records (ICD-10, menopausal and female climacteric states: N95.1, Menopausal and perimenopausal disorder, unspecified: N95.9) from eight university KM hospitals in South Korea.

RESULTS

The main symptoms of 1,682 patients with menopausal disorders visiting eight college-affiliated oriental medicine hospitals were hot flush, hyperhidrosis, fatigue, insomnia, and chest tightness. Guipi decoction, Si-wu guipi decoction, Qing-xin lianzi-yin, Jiawei xiao-yao-san and Guipi wen-dan decoction were the most commonly prescribed treatments for menopausal disorders. Patients were most often treated with a combination of herbal medicine and acupuncture.

CONCLUSION

Our study shows that the current prescribed herbal medicines were used for treating menopausal disorders in Korean medicine hospitals. However, the objectivity of the efficacy assessment should be studied further.