Introduction: Body constitution (BC) is widely applied in daily clinical practice by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners. The BC is innate depending on the intrinsic properties of the human body and is influenced by the environment. The most common diagnostic tool of physiological BC types is the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ). This study was conducted to determine the proportion of nine TCM constitution types and comorbidities observed in the community of District 4, Ho Chi Minh City.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was applied to collect data for this study. All the participants were classified as BC types by the CCMQ. The collected data were statistically analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 software.

Results: There were 436 participants aged from 18 (163 males; 273 females) enrolled in this study from 05/2021 – 06/2021 in District 4. Five comorbidities were observed including hypertension (23.6%), cardiovascular diseases (13.1%), diabetes (11.5%), hyperlipidemia (8.3%) and obesity (4.1%). In participants, the prevalence of nine BC types were Neutral (62.4%), Qi-deficiency (17.2%), Qi-depression (15.6%), Inherited-special (8.9%), Yang-deficiency (8.3%), Blood-stasis (8.0%), Yin-deficiency (7.6%), Phlegm-dampness (6.4%), and Dampness-heat (5.7%). The Qi-deficiency type was significantly associated with ages, genders, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases while the Dampness-heat one was related to gender.

Conclusions: Among the participants in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City, hypertension (23.6%) is the most common comorbidity. Neutral (62.4%) is the majority in BC types. The associations between BC types and ages, genders, jobs, five chronic diseases were different. 

Introduction: Body constitution (BC) plays an important role in preserving health and reducing risk of diseases depending on each person’s physical characteristics. Classification of BC is almost based on the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ). In Vietnam, there is still no questionnaire survey to assess the BC. Therefore, this study aims to adapte and validate the Vietnamese version of CCMQ.

Methods: 2 phases of the study: the first phase constituted the translation with cross-cultural adaptation of CCQM into Vietnamese according to Guillemin et al; the second phase assessed the reliability and validity of the Vietnamese CCMQ version based on a cross-sectional study.

Results: Phase 1 formed the final Vietnamese CCMQ version in which face validity and content validity are incorporated. Seven traditional medicine practitioners confirmed the content validity (CVI: 57%–100%). The face validity of the scale is qualified. In phase 2, 455 participants aged 18 years old or older were enrolled in this study from 01/2021 – 06/2021 in Ho Chi Minh City. Regarding the criterion validity, the correlation coefficient between Vietnamese CCMQ and SF-36 was 0.67 for the Neutral type and -0.31 to -0.57 for the rest. The internal consistency varied from 0.70 to 0.83 measured by Cronbach’s alpha. The test-retest reliability varied from 0.63 to 0.90 for each of the 9 sub-scales and from 0.40 to 0.68 for each of the 60 questions.

Conclusions: The Vietnamese version of CCMQ has good reliability and validity, which provides a strong basis for future researches on BC of Vietnamese Traditional Medicine.