Objective Conducted a preliminary study on Chinese medicine clinical efficacy evaluation and its relation structure based on Chinese medical "syndrome-treatment-effect"model. Methods Articles on Chinese medicine clinical efficacy evaluation published on Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2012 to December2016 were systematically searched in China National Knowledge Infrastructure（ CNKI）. Research topics of the included papers were manually indexed. Co-occurrence analysis and visualized expression were carried out to analyze authors

author’s institutions

keywords and research topics of the papers. Results 1826 relevant papers were identified. Among authors of those articles

113 authors published more than 5 papers on this topic

and they formed 10 relatively stable research groups. The main research institutions were research institutions and universities of Chinese medicine

such as China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences

Beijing University of Chinese Medicine

and Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Keywords analysis showed that "famous doctors’ experience"

"Chinese medical therapy"

"Chinese medical syndrome"were the main research hotspots. Subjects in the Chinese medicine clinical efficacy evaluation included individual physicians

diseases

syndrome

symptoms

constitutions

treatment principle

prescription

herbs

and effect. Conclusion Individual physician

diseases

treating principle and methods

syndrome

symptoms and signs are the main topics in Chinese medicine clinical efficacy research

most of which involved treatment principles and methods of individual physician

prescriptions of individual physician and prescriptions for specific diseases. There are few of constitution-related studies.