Clinical symptoms between severe and non-severe COVID-19 pneumonia: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019, (COVID-19) is a major problem in public health in the world. Up to June, 2020, the number of infections arising to 8,690,000 and cause 410,000 deaths all over the world. Identification the clinical symptoms from non-severe to severe is important for clinician. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the clinical symptoms between severe and non-severe COVID-19 pneumonia. METHODS: Electronic databases including PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure database, Wanfang Database and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database were searched from its inception to June 21, 2020. We only included severe versus non-severe COVID-19 pneumonia patients and pooled results were summarized by STATA 12.0 software. Two researchers independently selected the study and assessed the quality of the included studies. The heterogeneity was measured by I(2) tests (I(2) < 50 indicates little heterogeneity, I(2)≥50 indicates high heterogeneity). Publication bias was ruled out by funnel plot and statistically assessed by Begg test (P > .05 as no publication bias). RESULTS: Results will be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals. CONCLUSION: Our study aims to systematically present the clinical symptoms between non-severe and severe of COVID-19 patients, which will be provide clinical guidance for COVID-19 patients.