Critical Appraisal of Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of COVID-19: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Abstract

BackgroundIn December 2019, a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 was identified as the cause of an acute respiratory disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Given the lack of validated treatments, there is an urgent need for the high-quality management of COVID-19. Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are one tool that healthcare providers may use to enhance patient care. As such, it is necessary that they have access to high-quality evidence-based CPGs upon which they may base decisions regarding the management and use of therapeutic interventions (TI) for COVID-19. The purpose of the proposed study is to assess the quality of CPGs that make management or TI recommendations for COVID-19 using the AGREE II instrument. Methods‌The proposed systematic review will identify CPGs for TI use and/or the management of COVID-19. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Web of Science will be searched from December 2019 up to December 2020. The primary outcome of this study is the assessed quality of the CPGs. The quality of eligible CPGs will be assessed using the Appraisal of Guidelines, Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) instrument. Descriptive statistics will be used to quantify the quality of the CPGs. The secondary outcomes of this study are the types of management and/or TI recommendations made. Inconsistent and duplicate TI and/or management recommendations made between CPGs will be compared across guidelines. DiscussionThe results of this study will be of utmost importance to enhancing clinical decision-making among healthcare providers caring for patients with COVID-19. Moreover, the results of this study will be relevant to guideline developers in the creation of CPGs or improvement of existing ones, researchers who want to identify gaps in knowledge, and policy-makers looking to encourage and endorse the adoption of CPGs into clinical practice. The results of this review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences. Systematic Review ‌Registration‌ ‌International‌ ‌Prospective‌ ‌Register‌ ‌for‌ ‌Systematic‌ ‌Reviews‌ ‌(PROSPERO)‌ ‌—‌ ‌CRD42020219944