Introduction: Lyme Disease (LD) is the most common tick-borne disease in North America. With the number of cases increasing yearly, Canadian healthcare professionals (HCP) rely on up-to-date and evidence-informed guidelines, instruction, and resources to effectively prevent, diagnose, and treat Lyme disease (LD). This review is the first of its kind to examine gray literature and analyze the diversity of recommendations provided to Canadian HCP about the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease.
Methods: A gray literature review consisting of 4 search strategies was conducted to retrieve materials targeted to Canadian HCP. Searches within targeted websites, targeted Google searches, and gray literature databases, and consultation with content experts were done to look for continuing medical education (CME) events, clinical flow charts, webinars, videos, and reference documents that discussed the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease.
Results: A total of 115 resources were included in this study. Recommendations surrounding prevention strategies were less varied between materials, whereas diagnosis and treatment recommendations were more varied. Our findings suggest that Canadian HCP are met with varying and sometimes contradictory recommendations for diagnosing and treating LD.
Conclusions: Due to the increasing incidence of LD in Canada, there is a greater need for resource consistency. Providing this consistency may help mitigate LD burden, standardize approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and improve patient outcomes.
Keywords: Lyme disease; diagnosis; gray literature; medical education; treatment.