Objective To systematically review the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine on clinical symptoms during the recovery period of COVID-19. Methods The CNKI, WanFang Data, SinoMed, VIP, PubMed, Cochrane Library and EMbase databases were electronically searched to collect studies related to objectives from inception to February 2023. Two reviewers independently screened the literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis was then performed using RevMan 5.4 software. Results A total of 8 studies involving 740 patients were included in the meta-analysis, including 4 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 4 non-RCTs. The results of the meta-analysis showed that traditional Chinese medicine could effectively relieve patients’ fatigue symptoms compared with blank control (MD=?1.07, 95%CI ?1.46 to ?0.68, P<0.01). Chinese patent medicine combined with conventional Western medicine treatment effectively improved cough symptoms in patients compared with conventional Western medicine treatment (MD=?0.80, 95%CI ?1.30 to ?0.30, P<0.01), symptoms of dry pharynx (MD=?0.86, 95%CI ?1.22 to ?0.51, P<0.01), symptoms of chest tightness (MD=?0.58, 95%CI ?0.79 to ?0.36, P<0.01), and total efficiency (RR=1.42, 95%CI 1.18 to 1.71, P<0.01). Conclusion?Current evidence shows that traditional Chinese medicine can effectively improve the clinical symptoms such as fatigue, cough, dry pharynx and chest tightness in patients with novel coronavirus infection in the recovery period. Due to the limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high-quality studies are required to verify the above conclusion.
