Clinical practice guidelines for pharmacologic treatments of hospitalized COVID-19 patients: assessment of quality and trustworthiness (search up to 28 February 2021)
Citation: Burns KE, Laird M, Stevenson J, et al. Adherence of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pharmacologic Treatments of Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19 to Trustworthy Standards: A Systematic Review. JAMA Network Open. 2021;4(12):e2136263.
Language: Abstract available in EN. Full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: Nothing noted.
What is this? Many Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) have been issued for treatments for COVID-19.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for CPGs of pharmacological treatments for hospitalised COVID-19 patients to determine the quality and trustworthiness of these guidelines. They did not restrict their searches by language of publication and did the main search up to 14 December 2020 followed by a search of related articles to identify updates to the identified CPGs published up to 28 February 2021. They included 32 CGPs, which were international (15 CGPs) or national (17).
What was found: Overall, the COVID-19 CPGs included in this review were judged to be of low quality with only a few reaching the US National Academy of Medicine standards for trustworthy guidelines.
While 14 of the 32 included CPGs suggested or recommended for or against treatments, only 6 rated confidence in the quality of the evidence, only 6 explained potential benefits and harms, and only 5 rated the strength of the recommendations.
Implications: The authors of the review concluded that better engagement of methodologists and multidisciplinary collaborations from at least two WHO regions may produce fewer CPGs but that these would be of high-quality and be prepared for updates as new evidence transpires.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discuss their findings in the context of place of residence.
This summary was prepared by Surya Ramachandran, edited by Sydney Johnson, and finalized by Mike Clarke.
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