Influencing factors analysis of dynamic change of TCM constitution based on multiple methods

Objective

This study aimed to explore the influencing factors of dynamic changes in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) constitution based on general statistics, Apriori-DEMATEL algorithm, and DoWhy causal inference framework methods.

Methods

Dynamic collection of TCM constitution identification data was conducted from the population aged 18 − 60, containing collection time and constitution type, and 11 constitution influencing factors including dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, exercise habit, emotion state, stress level, living environment, work/life calamity, family atmosphere, business trip frequency, and overtime situation. General statistical analysis was used to analyze the relative percentage of corresponding influencing factors of different types of constitution changes, the Apriori-DEMATEL algorithm was used to analyze the correlation between 11 constitution influencing factors such as dietary habit and constitution changes, and the DoWhy causal inference framework was used to analyze the causality between dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, exercise habit, emotion state, and stress level, explore the frequency of constitution type transformation-change factors, and determine the key influencing factors causing dynamic changes in constitution type.

Results

After preprocessing, 13536 valid data points were obtained. Based on the Apriori-DEMATEL algorithm, the factors were divided into six original factors including dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, exercise habit, emotion state, and stress level, and five result factors including living environment, work/life calamity, family atmosphere, business trip frequency, and overtime situation. Combining with general statistics, we found that among the original factors, changes in dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, and stress level had a greater impact on other factors. In the process of constitution conditioning, attention should be paid to these four factors to maintain constitution balance. Among the five result factors, the absolute values of work/life calamity and family atmosphere were relatively large, indicating that these two factors were easily influenced by other factors. The dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, exercise habit, emotion state, and stress level have higher centrality in changes, indicating that these six factors had important in constitution changes. According to the statistical frequency of constitution changes corresponding to each factor, we found that the changes of these six factors accounted for a large proportion of the constitution transformation frequency among Qi deficiency constitution, balanced constitution, and allergic constitution, indicating that the changes of these six factors played an important role in the changes of the three constitution types. Combined with the results of the Apriori-DEMATEL algorithm, and DoWhy causal inference framework analysis, it was inferred that dietary habit and sleeping duration indirectly lead to constitution changes by affecting the changes of other factors.

Conclusion

This study explored the influencing factors of dynamic changes in TCM constitution from the perspective of dynamic data and multiple analysis methods, and the results showed that the changes of dietary habit, sleeping habit, sleeping duration, exercise habit, emotion state, and stress level had a great impact on the changes of Qi deficiency constitution, balanced constitution and allergic constitution. Attention should be paid to the changes of these six factors in daily life, and corresponding improvement plans should be formulated to reduce the probability of transforming into biased constitution. Our study also provided data support and objective analysis reference for the analysis of influencing factors of dynamic changes in TCM constitution types.