A Study on the Characteristics of Korean Medicine Clinic Type through Latent Class Analysis

Juchul Kim; Hyunmin Kim; Hong Jun-gil; EunHee Yi; Sohyun Kim; Eunji Ahn; Yooseon Park; Dongsu Kim; Kim, Juchul; Kim, Hyunmin; Hong, Jun-gil; Yi, EunHee; Kim, Sohyun; Ahn, Eunji; Park, Yooseon; Kim, Dongsu

doi:10.13048/jkm.25004

JKM > Volume 46(1); 2025 > Article

Kim, Kim, Jun-gil, Yi, Kim, Ahn, Park, and Kim: A Study on the Characteristics of Korean Medicine Clinic Type through Latent Class Analysis

Original Article

The Journal of Korean Medicine 2025; 46(1): 42-56.

Published online: March 01, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13048/jkm.25004

A Study on the Characteristics of Korean Medicine Clinic Type through Latent Class Analysis

Juchul Kim¹

, Hyunmin Kim²

, Hong Jun-gil³

, EunHee Yi⁴

, Sohyun Kim⁵

, Eunji Ahn⁶

, Yooseon Park⁷^{, *}

, Dongsu Kim⁸^{, *}

¹Research Institute of Korean Medicine Policy, The Association of Korean Medicine

^2,3,7Policy Development Center, National Institute for Korean Medicine Development

⁴Management Strategy Team, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine

⁵Medical Association of Pharmacopunture Institute

^6,8College of Korean Medicine, Dongshin University

Correspondence to: Yooseon Park, 12th floor, 173, Toegye-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea, Tel: +82-2-3393-4541, E-mail: parkys@nikom.or.kr

Correspondence to: Dongsu Kim, College of Korean Medicine, Dongshin University, 67, Dongsindae-gil, Naju-si, Jeollanam-do, Republic of Korea, Tel: +82-61-330-3258, E-mail: dskim20@dsu.ac.kr

Received December 30, 2024 Revised February 13, 2025 Accepted February 13, 2025

Abstract

Objectives

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic around the world has resulted in a decrease in the number of patients visiting medical centers due to concerns about infectious diseases, and the decrease in sales of Korean medicine clinics has been reported to be the highest among the medical fields. This study aims to identify the types of Korean medicine clinics according to the main characteristics of their management using latent class analysis.

Methods

In order to distinguish the types of Korean medicine clinics and to find out the characteristics of each type, a latent class analysis was conducted on 1648 Korean medicine clinics that participated in the 2023 Korean Medicine Consumption Survey. Descriptive analysis was conducted for institutional characteristics, herbal medicine consumption patterns, and representative perception variables by type of Korean Medicine Clinic. Descriptive analyses were performed using the Analysis of Variance for continuous variables and the Chi-Square Test for nominal variables. All analyses were conducted using Stata and hypothesis tests were conducted at a significance level of 0.05.

Results

The types of Korean medicine clinics were categorized into three groups: ‘non-urban general Korean medicine clinics’, ‘urban general Korean medicine clinics’, and ‘Korean medicine clinics that prefer shared Herbal Medicine Dispensary’. The most common type of acupuncture clinic was at ‘urban general acupuncture clinic’ (47.80%), followed by ‘non-urban general acupuncture clinic (45.10%)’ and ‘acupuncture clinic with shared herbal medicine dispensary (7.10%)’. In terms of sales, ‘Korean medicine clinics with shared herbal medicine dispensary’ were 1.76 times more than ‘urban general Korean medicine clinics’ and 1.49 times more than ‘non-urban general Korean medicine clinics’, while ‘Korean medicine clinics with a shared herbal medicine dispensary prescribed more than twice as many herbal medicines and herbal supplements as other types. Although the shared herbal medicine dispensary preference’ clinics were less likely to be aware of the off-site herbal medicine dispensary certification system, they were the most likely to recognize the importance of certification when choosing a shared herbal medicine dispensary and were also likely to use a granted authorized herbal medicine dispensary.

Conclusion

This study categorized the types of Korean medicine clinics and examined their characteristics. These findings provide a cross-section of the management characteristics of Korean medicine clinics, and can be useful for future basic research on the relationship between Korean medicine clinic characteristics and management performance, and can be used as a reference for Korean medicine clinic management.

Keywords: Latent Class Analysis, Korean Medicine Clinic, Korean Medicine Consumption Survey

Fig. 1

Conditional Probability of Assignment to Categorization Variable by Latent Class Type of Korean Medicine Clinic

Table 1

Variable Classification and Item

	Variable Name	Item
Typed Variables	Region	City Province
	Franchise Affiliation	Yes No
	Hospital Bed Availability	Yes No
	Representative Specialist	Yes No
	Use of Share Herbal Dispensary Facility	Yes No
Institutional Characteristics Variables	Total Sales (million won) Operation Period (years) Number of Korean Medicine Doctors (persons) Total Number of Staff (persons) Size of Korean Medicine Clinic (m²) Non-insurance Ratio (%)
Characteristic Variables of Herbal Medicine Consumption	Number of Herbal Medicine Prescriptions (cases) Number of Non-insurance Herbal Medicine Prescriptions (cases) Proportion of Disease Treatment in Herbal Medicine Prescriptions (%) Lowest Price per Herbal Medicine Prescription for Disease Treatment (10,000 won) Highest Price per Herbal Medicine Prescription for Disease Treatment (10,000 won)
Representative Perception Variables	Awareness of Certification System for External Herbal Dispensary Facilities	Yes No
	Use of Certified Herbal Dispensary Facilitys	Yes No
	Importance of Certification When Selecting a Common Herbal Dispensary Facilities	Yes No
	Top Priority for Improvement	Expansion of Health Insurance Benefits Promotion of Traditional Korean Medicine Other
	Top Priority for Health Insurance Coverage of Korean Medicine Treatments	Crude Drugs Herbal Medicine Prescriptions Other
	Top Priority for Expanding and Improving Herbal Medicine Prescriptions	Expansion of Health Insurance Coverage Other

Table 2

General Characteristics of the Target Korean Medicine Clinic (N=1,648)

		N or Average	% or Standard Deviation
Region	City	876	53.16
Region	Province	772	46.84

Franchise Affiliation	Yes	67	4.07
Franchise Affiliation	No	1,581	95.93

Hospital Bed Availability	Yes	240	14.56
Hospital Bed Availability	No	1,408	85.44

Representative Specialist	Yes	548	33.25
Representative Specialist	No	1,100	66.75

Use of Common Herbal Dispensary Facility	Yes	755	45.81
Use of Common Herbal Dispensary Facility	No	893	54.19

Total Sales (million won)		455.53	534.57

Operation Period (years)		13.10	10.31

Number of Korean Medicine Doctors (persons)		1.33	0.78

Total Number of Personnel (persons)		4.91	4.16
Size of Korean Medicine Clinic (m²)		224.17	202.92
Non-insurance Ratio (%)		28.33	19.86

Table 3

Latent Class Analysis Model Fit Comparison

	Class 2	Class 3	Class 4	Class 5
AIC	8520.26	8502.02	8499.32	8506.10
BIC	8574.33	8588.54	8602.06	8630.47

Table 4

Conditional Response Probability of Each Type (N=1,648)

		Class1 Non-urban General Korean Medicine Clinic (45.1%)	Class2 Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic (47.8%)	Class3 Korean Medicine Clinic Preferring Common Herbal Dispensary Facility (7.1%)

N		744	787	117
Region	Province	0.965	0.000	0.439
Region	City	0.035	0.999	0.561

Franchise Affiliation	Yes	0.000	0.002	0.237
Franchise Affiliation	No	0.999	0.998	0.763

Hospital Bed Availability	Yes	0.146	0.037	0.418
Hospital Bed Availability	No	0.854	0.963	0.582

Representative Specialist	Yes	0.341	0.332	0.313
Representative Specialist	No	0.659	0.668	0.687

Use of Common Herbal	Yes	0.373	0.407	0.798
Dispensary Facility	No	0.627	0.593	0.202

Table 5

Institutional Characteristics by Type of Korean Medicine Clinic (N=1,648)

	Class1 Non-Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class2 Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class3 Korean Medicine Clinic Preferring Common Decoction Room	p-value
Total Sales (million won)	473.46±609.36	401.35±431.09	705.88±578.49	<0.001
Operation Period (years)	12.43±9.89	14.68±10.69	6.69±6.88	<0.001
Number of Korean Medicine Doctors (persons)	1.31±0.73	1.26±0.69	1.95±1.27	<0.001
Total Number of Staff (persons)	5.11±4.57	4.11±3.02	9.00±5.34	<0.001
Size of Korean Medicine Clinic (m²)	204.90±168.55	165.86±149.22	330.50±227.69	<0.001
Non-insurance Ratio (%)	26.12±16.37	30.13±22.32	30.27±21.20	<0.001

† Statistically significant with p<.01, Result of ANOVA

Table 6

Characteristics of Herbal Medicine Consumption by Type of Korean Medicine Clinic (N=1,638)

	Class1 Non-Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class2 Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class3 Korean Medicine Clinic Preferring Common Herbal Dispensary Facility	p-value
Number of Herbal Medicine Prescriptions (cases)	762.40±1273.25	606.42±1078.52	1129.03±1326.91	<0.001
Number of Non-insurance Herbal medicine Preparations (cases)	441.24±1397.45	243.57±394.92	848.25±1670.06	<0.001
Proportion of Disease Treatment Among Herbal Medicine Prescriptions (%)	74.21±20.94	74.74±20.37	76.70±23.85	0.480
Lowest Cost per Prescription of Herbal Medicine for Disease Treatment* (10,000 won)	13.33±4.90	15.40±6.25	13.95±5.30	<0.001
Highest Cost per Herbal Medicine Prescriptions for Disease Treatment* (10,000 won)	26.68±11.42	27.88±12.40	26.53±12.36	0.120

* There are 10 non-respondents. Total responses: n=1,268.

† Statistically significant with p<.01, Result of ANOVA

Table 7

Representative awareness by type of Korean medicine clinic (N=1648)

	Class1 Non-urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class2 Urban General Korean Medicine Clinic	Class3 Korean Medicine Clinic Preferring Common Herbal Dispensary Facility	P-value
Awareness of the Certification System for External Herbal Dispensary Facilities
Yes	583(78.36)	635(80.69)	83(70.94)	0.047
No	161(21.64)	152(19.31)	34(29.06)

Whether Certified Herbal Dispensary Facilities are Used*
Yes	342(60.75)	331(52.96)	73(90.12)	<0.001
No	221(39.25)	294(47.04)	8(9.88)

Importance of Certification When Choosing a Common Herbal Dispensary Facility
Yes	660(88.71)	621(78.91)	105(89.74)	<0.001
No	84(11.29)	166(21.09)	12(10.26)

Most importantly Top Priority for Improvement
Expansion of Health Insurance Benefits	466(62.63)	397(50.44)	77(65.81)	<0.001
Promotion of Traditional Korean Medicine	106(14.25)	128(16.26)	13(11.11)
Other	172(23.12)	262(33.29)	27(23.08)

Top Priority for Health Insurance Coverage of Korean Medicine Treatments
Crude Drugs	241(32.39)	225(28.59)	48(41.03)	0.023
Herbal Medicine Prescriptions	269(36.16)	316(40.15)	31(26.50)
Other	234(31.45)	246(31.26)	38(32.48)

Top Priority for Expanding and Improving Herbal Medicine Prescriptions
Expansion of Health Insurance Coverage	568(76.34)	581(73.82)	85(72.65)	0.444
Other	176(23.66)	206(26.18)	32(27.35)

* Responses were only collected from those who answered ‘yes’ to ‘Awareness of the certification system for external Herbal Dispensary Facilities ‘. Total responses: n=1,268

† Statistically significant with p<.01, Result of chi-square test

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