Protocol for developing clinical practice guidelines on traditional Chinese medicine therapy for influenza.

Background: Influenza is the most prevalent acute respiratory infection worldwide. There are many different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapies, which could reduce the duration of fever during influenza. However, there are no clinical practice guidelines (CPG) involving TCM therapies for influenza. Therefore, the present study aimed to establish a protocol for the development of CPG on TCM therapy for influenza.

Methods: The CPG will be developed according to the Institute of Medicine, the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II, and the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline handbook, and will provide recommendations based on systematic reviews. We have established a guideline working group (including a guideline steering group, a guideline development group, a guideline secretary group, and a system evaluation group), and will formulate clinical questions based on the population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes format. The recommendations will be formed via evidence search, syntheses, and the nominal group technique method. We will also consider patients' values or preferences, peer review results, and declarations of interest in the CPG. The CPG is registered on the International Practice Guidelines Registry Platform (registration no. IPGRP-2019CN044).

Results: The protocol will provide a roadmap to develop an evidence-based CPG for influenza treated by TCM systematically. These guidelines would be the first CPG on TCM therapy for influenza, based on the WHO Handbook for Guideline Development, and will provide the necessary evidence for treating influenza using TCM.