Rehabilitation has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an essential health strategy, alongside promotion, prevention, treatment, and palliative care. For the WHO, rehabilitation is a core component of universal health coverage and a central target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. Rehabilitation focuses on the overall functioning of the whole person, including comorbidities. Consequently, rehabilitation of individuals who have experienced COVID-19 must consider not only the consequences of the disease but also the effects of treatments applied during the acute phase. For the WHO, functioning (the target of rehabilitation) is a key indicator of health, alongside mortality and morbidity, capturing the impact of diseases and injuries on body functions, human activities and participation. Rehabilitation inherently serves to reduce disability, with broad health, social, and economic impacts.

This Special Collection is the result of collaboration within Cochrane Rehabilitation, with rigorous involvement from stakeholders: the Steering Committee of the REH-COVER (Rehabilitation COVID-19 Evidence-based Response) action and the Cochrane Rehabilitation Advisory Board. The agreed list of relevant conditions is the product of a structured prioritization process for identifying the list of conditions, and subsequently review inclusion, except post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for which Cochrane Mental Health and Neuroscience was consulted.

This collaborative work identified the following conditions as relevant to the WHO rehabilitation programme: 

• Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pulmonary restrictive syndrome

• Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS)

• Post-extubation swallowing disorders

• Multiple organ failure and shock

• PTSD, in the context of rehabilitation

This Special Collection focuses on rehabilitation interventions for each of these conditions, but it should be noted that the rehabilitation process of COVID-19 patients in practice will be performed by multi-professional teams with a strict interdisciplinary collaboration, in accordance with the individual’s needs.

Some of the reviews in this Collection have search dates older than would usually be considered for inclusion in a Special Collection. They have been included for completeness as they address the relevant questions raised by the prioritization exercise. Please also note that the included reviews summarize evidence, but this does not mean that the interventions reviewed have been shown to be effective.

This Special Collection includes systematic reviews from Cochrane Emergency and Critical Care, Cochrane Neuromuscular, Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care and Cochrane Common Mental Disorders.