Lovell 2020.

Study characteristics
Methods	Study design: retrospective cohort study Type of publication: journal publication Setting and dates: hospital palliative care, 4 March to 26 March 2020 Country: United Kingdom Language: English Inclusion/exclusion criteria: COVID‐19‐positive patients referred to palliative care
Participants	Age: median age 82 (IQR 72 to 89) years Gender: 64 men/37 women Ethnicity: NR Number of participants (recruited/allocated/evaluated): 101 evaluated Symptoms at baseline: breathlessness (67), agitation (43), drowsiness (36), pain (23), delirium (24), secretions (11), fatigue (9), fever (9), cough (4) Comorbidities: hypertension (54), diabetes (36), dementia (31), advanced/metastatic cancer (25), chronic pulmonary disease (22), renal failure (21), congestive heart failure (18), stroke/neurological disorder (12), peripheral vascular disorder (4) liver disease (2)
Interventions	Pharmacological intervention(s): median dose/24 hours (range); alfentanil 500 μg (150 to 1000), midazolam 10 mg (5 to 20), glycopyrronium 1200 μg (600 to 2400), haloperidol 2 mg (1 to 2), cyclizine 50 mg*, morphine 10 mg (5 to 30), fentanyl 100 μg (100 to 200) Mode of drug‐delivery: 58 participants were prescribed a subcutaneous infusion. Non‐pharmacological intervention(s): none *IQR not reported
Outcomes	Primary review outcomes Symptom relief, assessed through clinical impression of efficacy Secondary review outcomes None reported  Additional outcomes reported Days of palliative care involvement Palliative care contacts and type of contacts Death rate Number and type of discharges
Notes	Sponsor/funding: the author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. COIs: the author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Selection bias (unrepresentative study group) All outcomes	Low risk	Clear inclusion criteria
Attrition bias (incomplete outcome assessment/follow up) All outcomes	High risk	Unclear for how long data were collected, 13 participants died before follow‐up
Detection bias (outcome detectors blinded to intervention) All outcomes	High risk	Not blinded
Confounding (important prognostic factors or follow‐up not taken adequately into account) All outcomes	High risk	Not adjusted for confounding factors
Reporting bias (poorly defined study group) All outcomes	Low risk	Study group well‐defined.
Reporting bias (poorly defined follow up) All outcomes	High risk	Follow‐up period not defined.
Reporting bias (poorly defined outcome) All outcomes	High risk	Outcome was subjective and was not defined. Data collected retrospectively. Outcome assessment has not been validated.