Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Oct 24, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 22, 2020 - Dec 17, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 17, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 20, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Chest CT and rapid antigen testing for reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection among HCWs involved in emergency trauma surgery during the pandemic: a systematic review protocol
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Introduction: Many healthcare facilities in low-and middle-income countries are inadequately resourced and may lack optimal organization and governance, especially concerning surgical health systems. COVID-19 has the potential to decimate these already strained surgical healthcare services unless health systems take stringent measures to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from viral exposure and ensure the continuity of specialized care for the patients. The objective of this broad evidence synthesis is to identify and summarize the available literature regarding the efficacy of chest CT and rapid testing for emergency trauma surgery patients to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection in trauma surgery staff in low-resource environments (LREs). Methods We will conduct several searches in the L·OVE (Living OVerview of Evidence) platform for COVID-19, a system that performs automated regular searches in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and over thirty other sources. The search results will be presented according to the PRISMA flow diagram. This review will preferentially consider systematic reviews of experimental and quasi-experimental studies, as well as individual studies of such designs, evaluating the effect of chest CT and rapid testing for emergency trauma surgery patients in preventing COVID-19 infection in emergency trauma surgery staff. Critical appraisal of the eligible studies for methodological quality will be conducted. Data will be extracted using the standardized data extraction tool in Covidence. Studies will, when possible, be pooled in a statistical meta-analysis using JBI SUMARI. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach for grading the certainty of evidence will be followed, and a Summary of Findings (SoF) will be created. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is not required for this review. The plan for dissemination is to publish review findings in a peer-reviewed journal and present findings at high-level conferences that engage the most pertinent stakeholders. PROSPERO: CRD42020198267
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