Fig. 3

Attitudes towards various Chinese medicine items of clinical practice guidelines (%). a Attitudes towards six Chinese medicine items of CPGs. Six items include traditional Chinese diagnosis (pink), syndrome differentiation (orange), CM therapeutic principles (olive), herbal formulae (green), other therapies (blue) and CM health-care approaches (purple). Perceived approval rating for each of the key CM diagnosis and treatment recommendations were determined by calculating the percentage of respondents that either agreed or strongly agreed (score 3 and 4). The following are some of the characteristics of CM: • syndrome differentiation (辨證) the process of overall analysis of clinical data to determine the location, cause and nature of a patient’s disease and achieving a diagnosis of a pattern/syndrome, also called pattern differentiation. • therapeutic principle & method of treatment (治則治法) a general rule that should be followed in treating disease and any specific intervention derived from a principle of treatment. • formula (方劑) prescription, recipe. • CM health-care approaches (養生) traditional health-care to promote health, prevent disease and enhance longevity, also called health preservation/cultivation. b Attitudes towards six Chinese medicine items of CPGs by nine specialties. S1: Internal medicine; S2: Oncology; S3: Surgery; S4: Gynaecology; S5: Paediatrics; S6: Ophthalmology; S7: Otolaryngology; S8: Anorectal; S9: Dermatology