Kang B, Chu H, Youn BY, Leem J. Prevention and management of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination using traditional Korean medicine: An online survey of public health doctors . World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(28): 10053-10065 [PMID: 36246807 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i28.10053]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jungtae Leem, KMD&PhD, Professor, College of Korean Medicine, Wonkwang University, 460, Iksan-daero, Sin-dong, Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea. julcho@naver.com
Research Domain of This Article
Integrative & Complementary Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Oct 6, 2022; 10(28): 10053-10065 Published online Oct 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i28.10053
Prevention and management of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination using traditional Korean medicine: An online survey of public health doctors
Byungsoo Kang, College of Korean Medicine, Dongshin University, Naju-si 58245, South Korea
Hongmin Chu, Daecheong Public Health Subcenter, Ongjin Public Healthcenter, Incheon 23105, Incheon, South Korea
Bo-Young Youn, Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, South Korea
Jungtae Leem, College of Korean Medicine, Wonkwang University, Iksan 54538, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea
Author contributions: Kang B and Leem J conceptualized the manuscript and contributed to data curation; Chu H and Kang B contributed to methodology and original drafting of the manuscript; Youn B reviewed the writing and contributed to manuscript drafting; all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported byNational Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korea, No. 2022R1C1C200873811.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of College of KM of Wonkwang University for the online survey protocol (WKIRB-202104-SB-022). Participants were recruited by the association and encouraged to read the questionnaire carefully.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The data used for this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jungtae Leem, KMD&PhD, Professor, College of Korean Medicine, Wonkwang University, 460, Iksan-daero, Sin-dong, Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea. julcho@naver.com
Received: April 5, 2022 Peer-review started: April 5, 2022 First decision: June 7, 2022 Revised: June 14, 2022 Accepted: August 22, 2022 Article in press: August 22, 2022 Published online: October 6, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Since February 2021, vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has started in Korea.
AIM
To perform a questionnaire survey about the prevention and management of adverse events of COVID-19 vaccination among public health doctors of Korean Medicine (PHKMDs).
METHODS
An online questionnaire was developed, comprising categories about adverse events of vaccination (AEVs) and perception of using Korean medicine (KM) in managing vaccine adverse events (AEs) among PHKMDs. PHKMDs’ experience of AEVs, usage of Korean medicine for AEVs, and perception and attitude in using KM for AEVs were surveyed. The survey web-link was emailed to the association of PHKMDs. Online links were sent through Survey Monkey to all PHKMDs in Korea.
RESULTS
A total of 143 participants were recruited for this study; 65% of participants were vaccinated at the same of the survey (n = 93). Although most participants did not take any medication for prevention of the adverse events, 62% (n = 58) of participants had taken herbal medicine to treat the adverse events (n = 52). Approximately 35% of participants (n = 33) said that they would recommend taking herbal medicine to prevent any AEVs. From various KM interventions, the participants strongly recommended taking an herbal medicine (n = 69, 74.19%) to treat AEs, and the second-highest was acupuncture treatment (n = 19, 20.43%).
CONCLUSION
Overall, this research demonstrated a high prevalence of KM usage by the PHKMDs. Hence, this study's results may serve as fundamental evidence for health professionals to consider using KM treatments when treating or preventing AEVs in the near future.
Core Tip: This study is the first to conduct a survey of traditional medicine doctors engaged in public health works regarding the prevention and management of adverse events utilizing traditional medicine modalities before and after the coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination.
