Quantifying Liver Stagnation Spleen Deficiency Pattern for Diarrhea Predominate Irritable Bowel Syndromes Using Multidimensional Analysis Methods

Objective This study aims to offer a new approach for quantifying severity of traditional Chinese medicine pattern with multidimensional analysis methods. Methods A scale and theoretical models were constructed based on the definition of liver stagnation spleen deficiency pattern. Clinical data of 344 IBS-D patients from a cross-sectional study was used for feature validation of the model. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for evaluating the models. Also, multidimensional item response model was used for assessing multidimensional psychometric properties of the scale. Results Detecting two latent traits, the Cronbach's alpha of the 9-item scale was 0.745. Multidimensional model was evaluated with significant goodness of fit indices while the unidimensional model was rejected. The multidimensional item response model showed all the items had adequate discrimination. Parameters presented adequate explanation regarding mental syndromes having high factor loading on the liver stagnation factor and abdominal discomfort syndromes highly related to the spleen deficiency factor. Test information function showed that scale demonstrated the highest discrimination power among patients with moderate to high level of severity. Conclusions The application of the multidimensional analysis methods on the basis of theoretical model construction provides a useful and rational approach for quantifying the severity of traditional Chinese medicine patterns.