Knowledge Exploring on the Medication Regularity of the Infectious Fever Treatment in Wai Tai Mi Yao Based on Cluster Analysis and Association Rules

Background: Knowledge discovering in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is helpful for medicine exploring. Infectious diseases are a prime global public health burden, and fever, one of the main symptoms, affects the prognosis of diseases. Objective: Summarize the core prescriptions for treating infectious fever by exploring and analyzing the fever prescriptions from Wai Tai Mi Yao after data clearing. Methods: Select the prescriptions up to the inclusion criteria and the drugs with a high frequency of
$\geqslant 7$
times, on which the R language software conducts the cluster and association rule analysis. Results: This study included a total of 55 prescriptions involving 86 drugs. Cluster analysis found four different core prescriptions, and association analysis found a total of 28 association rules, among which licorice, ephedra, cassia twigs, scutellaria baicalensis, ginger, and jujube were the drugs with the strongest correlation and the core position. Conclusion: By cluster and association rule analysis on the research of fever prescriptions in Wai Tai Mi Yao, this study obtained high-frequency traditional Chinese medicines and core prescriptions for fever treatment, providing specific reference values for the clinical treatment of infectious fever.