Distribution of Medical Service Use for Facial Palsy Between Medicine and Traditional Korean Medicine Based on Population-Based Data of Korea

Abstract

We investigated the distribution of medical service uses for Bell's palsy and Ramsay Hunt syndrome between medicine and traditional Korean medicine using the National Health Insurance Service National Sample Cohort data of Korea from 2006 to 2015. Patients were identified with diagnostic codes and medication or treatment claim codes. For Bell's palsy, there were 5,970 (68.8%) patients who used traditional Korean medical service only, whereas for Ramsay Hunt syndrome, there were 749 (93.6%) patients who used medical service only. The proportion of traditional Korean medical service use was higher than that of medical service use in patients with Bell's palsy, while the opposite was found in patients with Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

Keywords: Bell's Palsy; Facial Palsy; Medicine; Population-Based Study; Ramsay Hunt Syndrome; Traditional Korean Medicine.