Public Comment
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The McMaster University GRADE Centre and Cochrane Canada, with financial and scientific support from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), are developing six evidence-based guidelines for post COVID-19 condition (PCC) (also referred to as ‘long COVID’). The CAN-PCC guideline group will develop recommendations and good practice statements that cover various topics related to PCC to provide guidance for healthcare providers, patients, caregivers, policymakers, and the public.
Draft recommendations and other guideline deliverables and materials will be posted here periodically for public consultation prior to publication. Comments received during public comment periods will be reviewed by the guideline group and considered prior to finalizing for publication and dissemination.
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Survey closes Wednesday May 22 at 11:59 PM EDT
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The Cochrane Canada and MacGRADE teams, with financial and scientific support from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), will develop six evidence-based guidelines for post COVID-19 condition using rigorous scientific methods.
Our goal is to use the best available evidence to provide clinicians, decision-makers, policymakers, and the public in Canada with detailed guidance to make informed health decisions about post COVID-19 condition (PCC). We intend to prioritize topics that are most important to these audiences through a careful and inclusive process, while also considering the needs of equity-deserving groups.
With the six PCC guidelines, health care practitioners will be able to rely on evidence-based, rigorously developed guidance that will help them guide care for people affected by PCC. Policy makers will be able to make decisions based on these guidelines that can guide priority setting for implementation and resource allocation. Researchers and funders of research will also benefit by identifying research gaps that are not clearly answered in the systematic reviews that support the guidelines. Patients and members of the public will be able to use these recommendations to make informed decisions about their own health.
Check out our video on CAN-PCC to learn more
Guidelines help guide people such as patients, doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals and policy makers, about what to do or what can be done. Guidelines can tell us about:
- What treatments to give
- What tests to run
- Who to screen and more
Each guidelines includes a list of statements or recommendations about what to do.
Check out our guidelines video to learn more.
Recommendations are a component of a guideline. A recommendation is an actionable statement. It describes an action.
For example, a recommendation could say “Levofloxacin or moxifloxacin should be included in the treatment of multi drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR/RR-TB) patients on longer regimens.”
The action is to provide those drugs when treating tuberculosis.
Recommendations can be about many different topics, not just about treatments and drugs. For example, recommendations may cover topics such as social distancing.
Check out our guidelines video to learn more.
To obtain feedback from people who may use the final guidelines to make decisions about their own health, health systems or in their healthcare practice.
The Guideline Development Teams will review the responses to ensure that the public perspective and voice is included as they finalize recommendations for the guidelines to maximize their usefulness to the public, policymakers and healthcare professionals.
Past Public Comment Periods
April 2024 - Public Input on CAN-PCC Question Prioritization
CAN-PCC Pediatric and Adolescent Topics
We invited comments on the lists of priority questions for the CAN-PCC Guidelines, including input from patients, caregivers, the general public, healthcare providers, members of health and advocacy organizations, researchers, and policymakers.
Comments were accepted via an online survey until 11:59 PM EST April 1, 2024
April 2024 - Public Input on CAN-PCC Draft Recommendations
We invited comments on the lists of Draft Recommendations for the CAN-PCC Guidelines, including input from patients, caregivers, the general public, healthcare providers, members of health and advocacy organizations, researchers, and policymakers.
Comments were accepted via an online survey until 11:59 PM EST April 1, 2024
January, 2024 - Public Input on CAN-PCC Priority Guideline Questions
We invited comments on the lists of priority questions for the CAN-PCC Guidelines, including input from patients, caregivers, the general public, healthcare providers, members of health and advocacy organizations, researchers, and policymakers.
Comments were accepted via an online survey until 12pm ET January 8, 2024.
November, 2023 - Public Comment on Good Practice Statements
As a first step in the guideline development, the guideline group developed draft Good Practice Statements that covered various topics related to PCC.
We invited comments on the draft good practice statements, including input from patients, caregivers, the general public, healthcare providers, members of health and advocacy organizations, researchers, and policymakers. The public comment period closed on November 22, 2023. We thank all those who provided input on the draft statements.
What are Good Practice Statements?
A Good Practice Statement (GPS) represents a recommendation for an action for which the guideline group had high certainty, based on indirect evidence and general knowledge, that the benefits largely outweigh any harms. A GPS is deemed by the guideline group as necessary to issue and is intended to provide initial support for making appropriate healthcare decisions.
Read more here and here for additional details about development of good practice statements.