Scope, quality, and inclusivity of clinical guidelines produced early in the covid-19 pandemic: rapid review
BMJ 2020; 369 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1936 (Published 26 May 2020)
Cite this as: BMJ 2020;369:m1936
Abstract
Objective To appraise the availability, quality, and inclusivity of clinical guidelines produced in the early stage of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic.
Design Rapid review.
Data sources Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase, Ovid Global Health, Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, and WHO Global Index Medicus, searched from inception to 14 Mar 2020. Search strategies applied the CADTH database guidelines search filter, with no limits applied to search results. Further studies were identified through searches of grey literature using the ISARIC network.
Inclusion criteria Clinical guidelines for the management of covid-19, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) produced by international and national scientific organisations and government and non-governmental organisations relating to global health were included, with no exclusions for language. Regional/hospital guidelines were excluded. Only the earliest version of any guideline was included.
Quality assessment Quality was assessed using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II tool. The quality and contents of early covid-19 guidelines were also compared with recent clinical guidelines for MERS and SARS.
