Infectious Diseases Society of America Guidelines on the Treatment and Management of Patients with COVID-19

Abstract

Background: There are many pharmacologic therapies that are being used or considered for treatment of COVID-19. There is a need for frequently updated practice guidelines on their use, based on critical evaluation of rapidly emerging literature.

Objective: Develop evidence-based rapid guidelines intended to support patients, clinicians and other health-care professionals in their decisions about treatment and management of patients with COVID-19.

Methods: IDSA formed a multidisciplinary guideline panel of infectious disease clinicians, pharmacists, and methodologists with varied areas of expertise. Process followed a rapid recommendation checklist. The panel prioritized questions and outcomes. Then a systematic review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature was conducted. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach was used to assess the certainty of evidence and make recommendations.

Results: The IDSA guideline panel agreed on 7 treatment recommendations and provided narrative summaries of other treatments undergoing evaluations.

Conclusions: The panel expressed the overarching goal that patients be recruited into ongoing trials, which would provide much needed evidence on the efficacy and safety of various therapies for COVID-19, given that we could not make a determination whether the benefits outweigh harms for most treatments.