Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine for patients with COVID-19: Living network meta-analysis and Rapid Recommendations

Patients and clinicians worldwide need trustworthy, rapidly updated guidelines to inform their treatment of patients with acute and Long COVID-19. Although 80% of Canadians report using at least one Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative medicine (TCIM) in their lifetime, the overwhelmed healthcare system has limited capacity, and no Canadian or globally trustworthy guidelines and evidence summaries exist on TCIM for COVID-19. Optimal evidence summaries need to be up to date and differentiate well-done studies producing valid results from poorly done studies that are likely to be misleading. Interpretation of the evidence requires considering all the relevant studies addressing each treatment. In addition, it is vital to revise evidence summaries frequently as new information is published. To create trustworthy evidence summaries, we will search many databases to detect all relevant COVID-19 trials, evaluate the design and conduct of the studies, and combine all studies addressing each relevant question producing a single analysis for each outcome that patients feel is important. The resultant review allows patients and clinicians to compare all treatment options against standard care and against one another. These optimal evidence summaries will inform trustworthy practice guidelines. We will create trustworthy guidelines by constituting a panel that includes experts in COVID-19, TCIM clinicians and researchers, experts in assessing evidence, front-line clinicians treating COVID-19, and patients who have lived experience of acute and Long COVID-19. Panel members will be free of conflict of interest. These recommendations will be produced quickly and constantly revised as researchers publish new data. Finally, we will work with the World Health Organization for the guideline and one of the most impactful medical journals, the British Medical Journal, to publish the results online(free access for all) and as WHO guidelines on their website.