Characteristics of Traditional Chinese Medicine Constitution and Tongue Manifestation:A Study Based on Literature and Expert Consultation
Objective To construct an entry pool for tongue manifestation in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)constitution, and to investigate its contribution in constitution identification.Methods Existing articles were analyzed to obtain the tongue manifestation of TCM constitution and construct an entry pool,and Delphi expert consultation was conducted to form the ex-pert consensus.Results A total of 22 articles were used to construct an entry pool of 104 tongue manifestations for 9 TCM constitutions.On this basis,experts determined the score of the importance of each tongue manifestation in TCM constitution identification,forming 20 expert consensus entries for 7 constitutions.The mean score of overall evaluation was 8.13 points, with blood stasis constitution (8.76 points),phlegm-dampness constitution (8.53 points),damp-heat constitution (8.42 points),and Yin-deficiency constitution (8.39 points)showing a relatively high degree of contribution.Conclusion Different constitutions have different tongue manifestations,which have certain guiding significance in constitution identification.How-ever,it is challenging to differentiate constitution types through tongue manifestations alone.
Traditional Chinese medicine constitutionTongue manifestationDelphi methodExpert consensus