Relationship between 60 Items in Japanese Version of the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) Based on Multivariate Analysis: Estimation of Aging and BMI by CCMQ-J Scores

Abstract

Japanese version of the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) in Chinese consists of 60 items for 9 sub-scales called Gentleness, Qi-deficiency, Yang-deficiency, Yin-deficiency, Phlegm-wetness, Wet-heat, Blood-stasis, Qi-depression, and Special diathesis. Each question is answered by choosing one form 5 grades of a Likert scale where the grades from 1 to 5 corresponding to Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often and Always, respectively. In the present study, we examined the relationship of scores based on 597 respondents to 60 items. We tentatively classified 60 items into 12 groups by utilizing the Ward’s hierarchical clustering method and discussed similarity of items and 9 body conditions. Body Mass Index (BMI) and age can be explained by the score of 60 items by partial least square model. Significantly high correlation coefficients between real and estimated values were obtained for BMI (0.81 for male and 0.82 for female) and age (0.82 for male and 0.83 for female). Those results indicate that the answers to the 60 items can reflect aging and BMI properties and CCMQ-J can be used to assess the situation of health for evaluating the actual aging conditions in human.