Some thoughts on conducting and implementing clinical practice guidelines in a pandemic
A pandemic is a disease that spreads worldwide. When disease is new such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19) evidentiary basis, by definition, to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease is limited. Nevertheless, clinical practice guidelines are urgently required to assist policy and healthcare workers to make informed decisions. But, acting in the high quality evidentiary vacuum, that is, basing guidelines on poor quality research can be counterproductive and potentially harmful. Thus, guideline developers face a number of challenges during a pandemic like COVID 19 that we wish to address in this paper.
Chinese medical journal