title: [Indications of acupuncture outpatient based on clinical investigation].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present situation of clinical indications of acupuncture in China is investigated in this article which provides clinical evidence for the establishment of acupuncture indications.
  
  
  METHODS
  Out-patients of acupuncture departments of 31 Chinese provinces in the year 2008 were investigated through the method of cluster random sampling. And the analysis was made on diseases sorting and distribution based on Pareto principle and with EpiMap software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Information of 31 858 out-patients of the first treatment from 36 hospitals were collected which referred to 368 diseases of 16 disease systems. Among them, there were 57 most commonly-encountered diseases, 60 commonly-encountered diseases and 251 rare diseases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are totally 368 acupuncture clinical indications at present according to the investigation with disproportional distribution in administrative districts. It is held that indications of acupuncture have high centralization degree. Thus, the populariza tion and promotion on application of acupuncture indications should be strengthened.
authors: Tianjin University of TCM, Tianjin 300193, China. ibou119@163.com
authors: Bo
authors: B
authors: Li
authors: Yuan-Hao
authors: YH
authors: Du
authors: Jun
authors: J
authors: Xiong
authors: Yan-Long
authors: YL
authors: Xu
authors: Ying
authors: Y
authors: Li
authors: Xu
authors: X
authors: Wang
authors: Zhi-Hao
authors: ZH
authors: Li
authors: Jia-Lin
authors: JL
authors: Liu
authors: Yi-Yuan
authors: YY
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D015670:Acupuncture Therapy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002681:China; D006801:Humans; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*