Rehabilitation Care at the Time of Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) Pandemic: A Scoping Review of Health System Recommendations

Abstract

Purpose: The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 has imposed a significant burden on health care systems, economies, and social systems in many countries around the world. The provision of rehabilitation services for persons with active COVID-19 infection poses challenges to maintaining a safe environment for patients and treating providers.Materials and Methods: Established frameworks were used to guide the scoping review methodology. Medline, Embase, Pubmed, CINAHL databases from inception to August 1, 2020, and prominent rehabilitation organizations’ websites were searched.Study Selection: We included articles and reports if they were focused on rehabilitation related recommendations for COVID-19 patients, treating providers, or the general population.Data Extraction: Pairs of team members used a pre-tested data abstraction form to extract data from included full-text articles. The strength and the quality of the extracted recommendations were evaluated by two reviewers using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Results: We retrieved 6,468 citations, of which 2,086 were eligible for review, after duplicates were removed. We excluded 1,980 citations based on title and abstract screening. Of the screened full-text articles, we included all 106 studies. A summary of recommendations is presented. We assessed the overall evidence to be strong and of fair quality.Conclusion: The rehabilitation setting, and processes, logistics, and patient and healthcare provider precaution recommendations identified aim to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection and ensure adequate and safe rehabilitation services, whether face-to-face or through teleservices. The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly changing. Further updates will be needed over time in order to incorporate emerging best evidence into rehabilitation guidelines.

One-year follow-up of depression, anxiety, and quality of life of Peruvian patients who survived COVID-19

“…Thus, it causes lower physical resistance, incapacities, and permanent symptoms in those with COVID-19 infection [ 40 ]. In addition, due to the saturation of the health system and other restrictions during the pandemic, the COVID-19 survivors didn’t have access to healthcare, rehabilitation services, and follow-up after discharge, persisting their health problems [ 41 ]. Therefore, these problems might affect their daily life activities, HRQoL, and mental health.…”

Rehabilitation at the Time of Pandemic: Patient Journey Recommendations

“…In this guideline, we present recommendations focused on the patient journey at the time of the pandemic. Another manuscript presented the health system-related recommendations ( Negm et al, 2022 ). Figure 3 summarizes the structure of the recommendation.…”

Epidemiology of healthcare-associated SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in Germany between March 2020 and May 2022

“…Over the course of the pandemic precautionary recommendations were developed and implemented into rehabilitation guidelines, as summarized in a scoping review. 42 Developed measures were similar to measures in hospitals and outpatient care but may have been harder to implement due to the less clinical character of rehabilitation facilities. These setting-specific IPC measures, in combination with vaccination, most likely contributed to the reduction in outbreak numbers and cases we observed in phases 3 and 4 of the pandemic.…”