External treatment of traditional Chinese medicine for COVID-19: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

Background:There is a worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, as the number of patients increases. External treatment of traditional Chinese medicine includes acupuncture, massage, fire needle, cupping, and other alternative therapies. Currently, there are no relevant articles for systematic review.Methods:We will search the randomized controlled trials related to the external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine (such as, acupuncture, massage, etc) and COVID-19 from inception to June 2020. The following database is our focus area: the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Wan-Fang Database. All published randomized controlled trials in English or Chinese related to massage for COVID-19 will be included. Primary outcomes include the influence of external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine on the patients with COVID-19. Secondary outcomes include accompanying symptoms (such as myalgia, expectoration, stuffiness, runny nose, pharyngalgia, anhelation, chest distress, dyspnea, crackles, headache, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, diarrhea) disappear rate, negative COVID-19 results rate on 2 consecutive occasions (not on the same day), average hospitalization time, Clinical curative effect, and improved quality of life.Results:The results will provide a high-quality synthesis of current evidence for researchers in this subject area.Conclusion:The conclusion of our study will provide evidence to judge whether external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine is an effective intervention on the patients with COVID-19.PROSPERO registration number:CRD42020181336