Homeopathy as an adjuvant treatment for patients with COVID-19 - HU/UFSC

The emergence of a novel coronavirus pandemic urged the medical and scientific community to meet the challenge and look for effective solutions to reduce the burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), especially in the face of the lack of specific treatment. In that context, this study aimed to assess the effectiveness of homeopathy as an adjuvant treatment for COVID-19-associated pneumonia. Methods We conducted the present longitudinal and prospective study from July to November 2020 in a university hospital in Florianópolis, Brazil. The studied population were adults admitted to the hospital’s COVID-19 ward with a clinical diagnosis of pneumonia. Patients who met the inclusion criteria were randomized into an adjuvant homeopathy (AH) group, to receive the homeopathic adjuvant treatment, and a control group, to receive standard treatment (ST) alone. The main outcome was referral to intensive care unit (ICU) or discharge from hospital, and the secondary outcome was the length of stay (LOS) at hospital among those who were discharged. Results The final sample included 102 patients, 50 assigned to the AH group and 52 to the ST group. A total of 79 (77.4%) patients were discharged, 43 (86.0%) from AH and36 (69.2%) from ST. In total, 23 (22.5%) patients were referred to an ICU, seven (14.0%) from AH and 16 (30.7%) from ST. The relative risk for ICU referral was 1.24 (95% CI, 1.004 to 1.537; p.0.048) for ST. There was no statistically significant difference in LOS between the two groups. Conclusion: Adjuvant homeopathic treatment was effective in reducing the relative risk of ICU referral in the present study. However, there was no significant difference in LOS between the two groups. Thus, further studies are needed, with larger samples and performed in different centers, to confirm or refute the results.