key: cord-0842260-83a2bx84 authors: Chen, Yaolong; Yu, Xuan title: Clinical Practice Guidelines for COVID-19 date: 2020-07-24 journal: Integr Med Res DOI: 10.1016/j.imr.2020.100487 sha: f96c5ec505c795b401ddeceb10c242d5a5c076db doc_id: 842260 cord_uid: 83a2bx84 nan In 2011, the United States-based Institute of Medicine (IOM) defined clinical practice guidelines as "statements that include recommendations, intended to optimize patient care, that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options" [1] . In the past two decades, the number of global guidelines, whether in the field of Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, or integrated Chinese and Western medicine, has been growing rapidly, and its methodology has become gradually advanced [2, 3, 4, 5] . Around the development, implementation, and research of the clinical practice guidelines, professional organizations (such as the Guidelines International Network, GIN After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of a new coronavirus, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) would become a global public health emergency. In this period, guidelines on how to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease were quickly developed. From the outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to the early February 2020, different institutions and organizations around the world have developed and published approximately 30 guidelines related to COVID-19 in just one month [12] . It shows that, on average, guidelines could be developed in one per day. However, most of these guidelines have great weaknesses and inaccuracies in methodology and content [13] . For example, the guidelines are lack of elaboration on the development methods and processes, shortage of declaration and management of conflicts of interest [14] , inconsistent with recommendations, less number of guidelines for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children. Moreover, few guidelines are based on the evidence from systematic reviews, and some even do not list references and the name of developers. Experts believe that the unknown disease cannot be evidence-based in a short period of time, so we should rely on expert experience to rapidly provide consensus recommendations. However, no direct evidence does not mean that there are no reference methods to deal with similar emergency infectious diseases. In fact, SARS, MERS, Ebola and Zika virus have been provided by us with abundant evidence and valuable experience from different levels. Unfortunately, these evidence have not been paid enough attention to most of the COVID-19 guidelines. We believe that the evidence-based guidelines are highly condensed and concise knowledge, which is an important bridge from knowledge to practice. During public health emergencies, the role of the clinical practice guidelines is irreplaceable. However, it must be developed based on standard methodology [15, 16] , including registering guidelines and writing protocols at the beginning, setting up interdisciplinary and crossregional working groups, and managing conflicts of interest. Also, recommendations should be based on systematic review or rapid review, and need to grade quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. Moreover, guidelines should be published according to the reporting guidelines [17] , and recommendations should be timely and lively updated. The potential of traditional medicine and complementary and alternative medicine in public health emergencies has begun to show out gradually [18] . But it still needs more scientific verification and summary and transformation of these scientific studies timely [19, 20, 21] . Nowadays, clinical practice guidelines play a central role. Therefore, we expect more high-quality evidence-based guidelines of complementary medicine to be developed and implemented, and using scientific methods to fight the epidemic. This work did not require an ethical approval as it does not involve any human or animal experiment. WHO Collaborating Centre for Guideline Implementation and Knowledge Translation China References 1. Institute of Medicine (IOM) Clinical practice guidelines in China Quality assessment of clinical guidelines in China: 1993-2010 Using AGREE II to evaluate the quality of traditional medicine clinical practice guidelines in China Quality assessment of clinical practice guidelines for integrative medicine in China: a systematic review Clinical experts or methodologists to write clinical guidelines The skills and experience of GRADE methodologists can be assessed with a simple tool A quality evaluation of guidelines on five different viruses causing public health emergencies of international concern Scope, quality, and inclusivity of clinical guidelines produced early in the covid-19 pandemic: rapid review Reporting of declarations and conflicts of interest in WHO guidelines can be further improved Meeting public health needs in emergencies-World Health Organization guidelines World Health Organization. WHO Handbook for Guideline Development -2nd Edition A reporting tool for practice guidelines in health care: the RIGHT statement Herbal medicine for the management of COVID-19 during the medical observation period: A review of guidelines Traditional Chinese Medicine integrated western medicine for SARS Herbal Medicine for the Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The data will be made available upon request.