• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-32
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• 2022

Objectives : This paper examines major symptoms representation in COVID-19 patients as groundwork for development of an effective clinical data collection format in Korean Medicine. Methods : Major symptoms representation in COVID-19 related papers published worldwide were collected. Corresponding symptoms in Korean Medicine were then examined, followed by discussion of symptomatic features that require further consideration in regards to a more systematic clinical data collection. Results : Of 256 papers, most papers listed fever and cough while symptoms such as difficulty breathing, diarrhea, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue, chest pain, phlegm, nasal discharge were also mostly listed. Clinical representations could be categorized into general symptoms, throat symptoms, chest symptoms, head and facial symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, musculo-skeletal and cutaneous symptoms, psychiatric symptoms and sensory problems. Conclusions : Although each clinical representation could be likened to certain clinical representations of Korean Medicine, the variety of symptoms were too limiting and lacking in detail to be applied in the pattern identification[辨證] of Korean Medicine. For effective clinical data collection and analysis in the future, symptom change according to time, comparison between location, climate and ethnicity, existence of interior symptoms when diagnosing exterior symptoms, deficiency-excessiveness of blood patterns, consciousness levels, etc., need to be considered in establishing criteria for symptom evaluation.