2.1 Information Sources and Eligibility Criteria
The search for the management of COVID-19 CPGs was carried out on March
30, 2020, using documents issued by regional or international groups or
government organizations in English and Chinese, through the following
search engines using appropriate
keywords:
Embase; Medline; UpToDate; Cochrane Library; Database for Chinese
Technical Periodicals(VIP);China National Knowledge Infrastructure
(CNKI); the websites of China national, provincial, local Health and
Fitness Commission; the website of WHO. In this study the following
keywords were used: ‘guideline’, ‘novel/ new coronavirus’, ‘COVID-19’.
The search was limited to December 2019 and not earlier.
For included CPGs in this research, they must meet the inclusion
criteria as follows: (1) the CPGs provide systematically recommendations
or strategies in any population with COVID-19 on epidemiology,
screening, diagnosis of disease, preventive measures, therapeutic
interventions that assists clinical practitioners to make appropriate
decisions under specific circumstances; (2) the CPGs was conducted under
the concerted effort of public health organizations, professional
societies, medical associations, or government agencies at the national,
provincial, or local level. Since the role in the assessment of AGREE
II of health technology assessments has not been formally
evaluated2, the exclusion criteria are as follow:(1)
guidance documents or handbook that address health care organizational
issues, or guidelines were not issued on a regional level; (2)documents
that were not guidelines; (3) guidelines that were concerning mainly
about traditional Chinese medicine.