Objectives: Respiratory failure, multiple organ failure, shortness of breath, recovery, and mortality have been identified as critically important core outcomes by more than 9300 patients, health professionals, and the public from 111 countries in the global coronavirus disease 2019 core outcome set initiative. The aim of this project was to establish the core outcome measures for these domains for trials in coronavirus disease 2019.
Design: Three online consensus workshops were convened to establish outcome measures for the four core domains of respiratory failure, multiple organ failure, shortness of breath, and recovery.
Setting: International.
Patients: About 130 participants (patients, public, and health professionals) from 17 countries attended the three workshops.
Interventions: None.
Measurements and main results: Respiratory failure, assessed by the need for respiratory support based on the World Health Organization Clinical Progression Scale, was considered pragmatic, objective, and with broad applicability to various clinical scenarios. The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment was recommended for multiple organ failure, because it was routinely used in trials and clinical care, well validated, and feasible. The Modified Medical Research Council measure for shortness of breath, with minor adaptations (recall period of 24 hr to capture daily fluctuations and inclusion of activities to ensure relevance and to capture the extreme severity of shortness of breath in people with coronavirus disease 2019), was regarded as fit for purpose for this indication. The recovery measure was developed de novo and defined as the absence of symptoms, resumption of usual daily activities, and return to the previous state of health prior to the illness, using a 5-point Likert scale, and was endorsed.
Conclusions: The coronavirus disease 2019 core outcome set recommended core outcome measures have content validity and are considered the most feasible and acceptable among existing measures. Implementation of the core outcome measures in trials in coronavirus disease 2019 will ensure consistency and relevance of the evidence to inform decision-making and care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019.
Allison Tong 1 2, Amanda Baumgart 1 2, Nicole Evangelidis 1 2, Andrea K Viecelli 3, Simon A Carter 1 2, Luciano Cesar Azevedo 4, Tess Cooper 1 2, Andrew Bersten 5, Lilia Cervantes 6, Derek P Chew 5, Sally Crowe 7, Ivor S Douglas 8 9, Ella Flemyng 10, Julian H Elliott 11, Elyssa Hannan 1 2, Peter Horby 12, Martin Howell 1 2, Angela Ju 1 2, Jaehee Lee 13, Eduardo Lorca 14, Deena Lynch 2, Karine E Manera 1 2, John C Marshall 14 15, Andrea Matus Gonzalez 1 2, Anne McKenzie 16, Sangeeta Mehta 17, Mervyn Mer 17 18, Andrew Conway Morris 19, Dale M Needham 20, Saad Nseir 21, Pedro Povoa 21 22, Mark Reid 6, Yasser Sakr 23, Ning Shen 24, Alan R Smyth 25, A John Simpson 26, Tom Snelling 1 26 27, Giovanni F M Strippoli 1 28, Armando Teixeira-Pinto 1 2, Antoni Torres 29, Tari Turner 10, Steve Webb 10, Paula R Williamson 30, Laila Woc-Colburn 31, Junhua Zhang 32, Jonathan C Craig 5, COVID-19-Core Outcomes Set Investigators
Disease Category: Infectious disease
Disease Name: Coronavirus
Age Range: 18 - 100
Sex: Either
Nature of Intervention: Any
- Clinical experts
- Consumers (caregivers)
- Consumers (patients)
- Families
- Funders
- Patient/ support group representatives
- Policy makers
- Researchers
- Recommendations for outcome measures (measurement/how)
- Consensus meeting