Abstract
Objectives : Sasang typology is extensively studied for the Sasang constitution diagnosis objectification with various data, for example, questionaires, reference materials, etc and analyzed with the several statistical methods. In this study, we used ROC-curve (Receiver Operating Characteristic curve) analysis to diagnose Sasang constitution, which is a kind of epidemiologic research methods and is away from traditional statistical methods. Methods : We collected personality questionnaire which consists of 15 items, from 24 oriental medical clinics. We analyzed the sensitivity and specificity using ROC curve method based on the score of personality questionnaire and also investigated classification accuracy and cut-off value of Sasang constitution. Results : The AUC (area under the ROC curve) value was 0.508 (p=.5511) for Taeeumin, 0.629 (p<.0001) for Soeumin and 0.604(p<.0001) for Soyangin, respectively. so the classification accuracy for Soeumin was highest Soeumin for over 30 points and Soyangin for below 28 points respectively. Conclusions : We suggest that Taeeumin is not classified easily in the ROC-curve analysis. We may classify Soeumin and Soyangin but the accuracy of Sasang constitutional diagnosis is still low.
