[Status analysis of clinical outcome for treatment of long COVID with traditional Chinese and western medicines].

This study sorted out the clinical outcome of traditional Chinese and western medicines in the treatment of long COVID to lay the foundation for the construction of a core indicator set. Search was made on some databases and platforms from their inception to December 2024, which included eight databases of CNKI, Wanfang, SinoMed, VIP, PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMbase, and Web of Science and three clinical research protocol registration platforms, namely the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry(ChiCTR), the International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registry(ITMCTR), and the American Clinical Trial Registry(ClinicalTrials.gov). Two researchers independently extracted the basic information, outcomes, measurement time points, and measurement tools of literature in parallel according to the inclusion and exclusion standards. If there are any differences, a third researcher would make discussions and decisions. A total of 152 studies, including 50 literature studies and 102 protocol studies, were ultimately included. A total of 338 outcomes indicators were reported, with a reporting frequency of 1 633 times. Outcome indicators can be classified into 10 indicator domains based on attributes, including symptoms and signs(694 times, 42.50%), TCM diseases(61 times, 3.74%), security incidents(93 times, 5.70%), etiological detection(23 times, 1.41%), long-term prognosis(72 times, 4.41%), economic indicators(14 times, 0.86%), physical and chemical testing(472 times, 28.90%), quality of life(173 times, 10.59%), major events(16 times, 0.97%), and other indicators(15 times, 0.92%). There were problems in the outcomes indicators of treating long COVID with both traditional Chinese and western medicines, such as significant differences in symptom descriptions, lack of standardization in indicator selection, diverse choices of measurement tools, diverse selection of measurement time, lack of practicality in clinical practice, and non-prominent TCM indicators. These issues led to scattered evidence and the absence of a unified core indicator set to guide clinical research. Further efforts are needed to develop COS of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine treatments for long COVID, and to enhance the quality of clinical research on long COVID.