Choose your shortcuts wisely: COVID-19 rapid reviews of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an explosion of rapid reviews geared towards providing timesensitive answers for clinical and policy decision-makers. Rapid reviews strike a balance between rigour and rapidity to minimise bias and optimise transparency within specified constraints. Substantive guidance on how to strike that balance and undertake rapid reviews is readily available. Restrictions can be applied to the scope (PICO questions), methods (search strategy, inclusion criteria such as language, screening, analysis or synthesis) and reporting of results in order to prioritise speed. We propose that specific research disciplines, such as traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM), have a uniqueness that may lead to unacceptable outputs if minimum methodological standards are not applied to rapid reviews. We recommend the minimum requirements to optimise the credibility of rapid reviews of TCIM.