Currently, there are increasing debates on the necessity of health instruments in Chinese medicine (CM) emerging in China. This study aims to reevaluate its status and values. Analyzing the causes, limits, advantages, and properties characters of health instruments in CM, it is found that weak fundamental research, incomplete self-awareness, and complicated social factors are the primary causes of debates. A comprehensive analysis showed health instruments in CM have health evaluation benefits to people from a dominant Chinese culture, meet the requirements of cultural background, and bring long-term value to Chinese instrument researches. However, its values and status should be treated differently depending on various subtypes. Although little theoretical and practical evidences proved that patients-reported health instruments in CM should be proposed independently, the doctors- and nurses-reported questionnaires are necessary. With this in mind, the study group proposes the 'Chinese cultural instruments (CCIs)' and 'health-related CCIs'. The latter one aims to evaluate the health status of people in a dominant Chinese culture. The CCIs theory represents Chinese instrument researches on a larger regional and higher level, and resolves the debates on instruments between CM and Western medicine in China. Health instruments in CM bring more scientific and social benefits for Chinese instrument researches. However, it does not include cultural demands, and lacks scientific significance. CCIs have all its virtues, and add solutions to the latter's theory bottleneck and scientific debates, thus bringing increased benefits to clinical assessment in complementary and alternative medicine researches.
Keywords: Chinese culture; Chinese medicine; clinical outcome assessment; instrument; patient-reported outcome; value.