Clinical efficacy and safety of Qingshu Yiqi decoction as a complementary and alternative therapy for COVID-19 with Delta variant: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Qingshu Yiqi decoction combined with general western medicine are important and prevalent recently treatment method of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) with Delta variant, but the efficacy and safety were not clear. This meta-analysis aims to clarify their clinical efficacy and safety thus to provide evidence for clinical application. METHODS: We searched Chinese databases CNKI, Wanfang, VIP and English databases PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase for the current study. The retrieval time was from the establishment to November, 2021. Literature quality was evaluated according to the bias risk assessment criteria of Cochrane Collaboration network. RevMan 5.3 and Stata 12.0 were used to perform this research. RESULTS: The efficacy and safety of Qingshu Yiqi decoction combined with western medicine for COVID-19 with Delta variant were evaluated in terms of total effective rate, TCM syndrome score, negative conversation rate of viral nucleic acid, disappearance rate of clinical symptoms (such as fever, cough, and fatigue), CT improvement, white blood cell (WBC), lymphocyte (LYM) and adverse reaction rate. CONCLUSION: This study provides reliable evidence-based support for the clinical efficacy and safety of Qingshu Yiqi decoction as a complementary and alternative therapy for COVID-19 with Delta variant. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021271606.