Cohort Study Protocol of the Brazilian Collaborative Research Network on COVID-19: strengthening WHO global data

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Abstract Introduction With the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals in low-income countries were faced with a triple challenge. First, a large number of patients required hospitalization because of the infection’s more severe symptoms. Second, there was a lack of systematic and broad testing policies for early identification of cases. Third, there were weaknesses in the integration of information systems, which led to the need to search for available information from the hospital information systems. Accordingly, it is also important to state that relevant aspects of COVID-19’s natural history had not yet been fully clarified. The aim of this research protocol is to present the strategies of a Brazilian network of hospitals to perform systematized data collection on COVID-19 through the World Health Organization (WHO) Platform. Methods and Analysis This is a multicenter project among Brazilian hospitals to provide data on COVID-19 through the WHO global platform, which integrates patient care information from different countries. From October 2020 to March 2021, a committee worked on defining a flowchart for this platform, specifying the variables of interest, data extraction standardization and analysis. Ethics and Dissemination This protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the Research Coordinating Center of Brazil (CEP of the Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição), on January 29, 2021, under approval No. 4.515.519 and by the National Research Ethics Commission (CONEP), on February 5, 2021, under approval No. 4.526.456. The project results will be explained in WHO reports and published in international peer-reviewed journals, and summaries will be provided to the funders of the study. Strengths and limitations of this study As the study involves a convenience and non-probabilistic sample of patients hospitalized in health units, it may not represent the population of patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in the country. However, the information generated by this research can serve as a basis for the development of maps of the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 infection and public policies to face pandemics. It is a study that uses secondary data, and therefore, information bias may occur, but on the other hand, it has a low cost and facilitates a population-based study with national coverage. Article Summary This is a multicenter project among Brazilian hospitals to provide data on COVID-19 through the WHO global platform. It is expected to deepen knowledge about the pandemic scenario and help hospital institutions to develop preventive measures, health service protocols and strengthen the training of teams in the existing complications.

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