Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Apr 3, 2025
Date Accepted: Nov 11, 2025
Patients' preferences with Chinese medicine for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a protocol of mixed methods study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is now one of the top three causes of death worldwide. Chinese medicine has been used to manage respiratory diseases for thousands of years and has been evaluated for evidence of clinical effectiveness and safety in the treatment of COPD. Patients' values and preferences are undeniably important in medical decision-making, which may affect treatment outcomes and patient adherence.
Objective:
This study aims to investigate COPD patients' preference for Chinese Medicine, concerned clinical outcomes, and trade-offs for the factors of treatment scenario options, such as clinical effectiveness, cost, and side effects.
Methods:
A convergent design mixed-method study will be conducted. Firstly, an update of previous evidence will be provided, along with a systematic review of randomized controlled trials to examine the efficacy, safety, economics, and patient satisfaction of Chinese medicines for treating COPD. Secondly, semi-structured interviews will be performed to explore COPD patients' preference for Chinese medicine by qualitative investigation. Finally, a discrete choice experiment will investigate the importance of factors for selecting the treatment scenario. Patient perceptions of specific interventions will also be investigated as trade-offs are made between clinical effect size, certainty of evidence, and safety. The results of the qualitative investigation will be used to inform the subsequent data collection for the quantitative survey. The data integration occurs by connecting the analysis of the two subsequent steps.
Results:
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine on 6th Nov 2023(ZM2023-405). A total of 18,188 articles published after 2016 were initially identified in the English and Chinese databases. The outline of the semi-structured interviews for the current review has been developed. Further clinical evidence updates, qualitative interviews, and discrete choice experiments are still ongoing and will be completed in April 2026.
Conclusions:
This mixed-methods study might provide important insights into COPD patients' preferences for TCM, assessing trade-offs between efficacy, safety, cost, and other key factors that influence treatment decisions. This study is expected to deepen the understanding of patient-centered decision-making in the treatment of COPD. Findings are anticipated to guide clinical practice, inform policy development, and optimize the integration of Chinese medicine with respiratory care. Clinical Trial: NA
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