Assessment of factors associated with self-medication practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in southwestern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional survey

Self-medication practices involve the use of medications without healthcare professional requests. The threat of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused the practice of a fittest to survive action, with the assumption that something is better than nothing. Moreover, owing to the lack of effective...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC infectious diseases 2024-09, Vol.24 (1), p.925-14, Article 925
Main Authors: Jifar, Wakuma Wakene, Oumer, Osman Mohammed, Muhammed, Ismael Indris, BaHammam, Ahmed S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Analgesics
Antibiotics
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 Drug Treatment
Cross-Sectional Studies
Data collection
Drug development
Drug retail outlets
Drug self-administration
Drug stores
Drugs
Epidemics
Ethiopia
Ethiopia - epidemiology
Female
Headache
Health aspects
Health care
Health care facilities
Health care industry
Health services
Hospitals
Humans
Illnesses
Male
Medical personnel
Medical treatment
Middle Aged
Pandemic
Pandemics
Pharmacy
Prescription drugs
Prevalence
Psychological aspects
Public health
Regression analysis
Respiratory tract infection
Sample size
Sampling techniques
SARS-CoV-2
Self medication
Self Medication - statistics & numerical data
Shortages
Surveys
Surveys and Questionnaires
Viral diseases
Young Adult
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Summary:Self-medication practices involve the use of medications without healthcare professional requests. The threat of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused the practice of a fittest to survive action, with the assumption that something is better than nothing. Moreover, owing to the lack of effective treatment for COVID-19, the general public has shifted toward self-medication and symptomatic treatment, with approximately 80% of people stockpiling medication for use during the pandemic. Thus, this study aimed to assess the factors associated with self-medication practices during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in southwestern Ethiopia. A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed at selected drug retail outlets in southwestern Ethiopia for 415 community pharmacy clients from July 1, 2021, to September 1, 2021. Purposive sampling techniques were employed to select five drug retail outlets on the basis of high patient flows, and we took the study participants until the required quota allotted to each selected drug retail outlet had been filled. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were employed to identify factors associated with self-medication. AORs with 95% CIs were used to report associations, and the level of significance was set at P 
ISSN:1471-2334
1471-2334
DOI:10.1186/s12879-024-09876-y