National Health Insurance (NHI) covers acupuncture in Taiwan.
Objective:
To explore the prevalence and characteristics of acupuncture use among patients with prostate cancer who are covered under NHI.
Design, Setting, and Participants:
A retrospective study was conducted using a representative NHI database. A total of 2413 patients with prostate cancer who used ambulatory services during 2002–2008 were identified.
Intervention:
Claims of these patients with prostate cancer were analyzed.
Main Outcome Measures:
Prevalence of acupuncture use.
Results:
The prevalence of acupuncture use was 7.8%, 8.7%, 7.5%, 7.7%, 8.1%, 8.0%, and 8.6% in each cross-sectional year during 2002–2008, respectively. Overall, 353 patients (14.6%) had used acupuncture, with 2179 visits (average 6.2 visits per user). More than half of acupuncture users (56.1%) had <3 visits for acupuncture; 10.2% had more than 12 visits. Most patients received acupuncture at private clinics (72.6%). The most frequent principal diagnosis by visits was “musculoskeletal diseases” (51.2%), followed by “injury” (29.1%), “diseases of the circulatory system” (9.2%), and “neoplasms” (4.3%).
Conclusions:
A certain portion of patients with prostate cancer used acupuncture with NHI coverage in Taiwan. Acute and chronic diseases were the most commonly treated conditions other than prostate cancer.
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