Self-Medication-Related Behaviors and Poland’s COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

(1) Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has changed the functioning of Polish health systems. Telemedicine has been developed and access to prescription drugs (Rx) has been facilitated. This study examined whether these changes and the imposition of a three-month lockdown caused Polish people to engage in more self-medication-related behaviors. (2) Method: After the fourth (final) stage of defrosting the Polish economy, an online survey of a quota sample of 1013 Polish respondents was conducted. (3) Results: Almost half of the respondents (45.6%) indicated that they had engaged in at least one behavior associated with inappropriate self-medication during the lockdown (e.g., 16.6% took medication as a precaution, and 16.8% took an Rx formulation without consultation). Some of these people had never engaged in such behaviors prior to the lockdown. Linear regression showed that higher values of a composite (“lockdown”) index of self-medication-related behaviors occurring during lockdown were predicted by greater religiosity and the presence of children in a household. Also, independent samples t-tests showed that people who were afraid for their financial future and people who feared for their health obtained higher lockdown index scores than people not having such worries. (4) Conclusions: Self-medication-related behaviors were more common among Poles before lockdown than during the lockdown (which is unsurprising given that the lengths of the periods compared were hugely different), worryingly, many people exhibited such behaviors for the first time during the lockdown.

Treatment, Persistent Symptoms, and Depression in People Infected with COVID-19 in Bangladesh

“…Similar reasons have been reported in several studies conducted in northern England and Australia [ 51 , 52 ] and in low- and middle-income countries [ 53 , 54 ]. Other studies conducted in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Poland suggest that self-medication practices were influenced by the lower cost of medicine, time restrictions, whether an illness was considered not to be serious, family size, and religious beliefs [ 50 , 55 , 56 ]. The proportion of people impacted by COVID-19 was particularly high in Bangladesh (particularly Dhaka) during this pandemic [ 57 ].…”

A automedicação no período de pandemia de COVID-19: Revisão integrativa

“…No que diz respeito a categoria "Perfil sociodemográfico de comportamentos relacionados a automedicação", um estudo realizado na Polônia evidenciou a relação da prática da automedicação com o viés sociodemográfico através da categoria: prática religiosa e a presença de crianças menores de 18 anos que residem com os pais, sendo 90,6% e 39,5% respectivamente (Makowska, et al, 2020).…”

“…Esse dado se sustenta quando Makowska et. al (2020) afirma que a religião é frequentemente associada ao bem-estar, qualidade de vida e saúde.…”

“…Cabe também ressaltar que a religiosidade desperta de forma positiva ou negativa a confiança em informações obtidas através de fontes informais, tais como: familiares, amigos, líderes espirituais, sites religiosos, entre outros. Tal situação embasada na fé, propicia com que fiéis adotem para si informações não verificadas acerca da eficácia de medicamentos, colocando em risco a sua saúde (Makowska, et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19: Questions of Antimicrobial Resistance

“…Thereby, ordinary people purchase and consume antimicrobials without prescription for many self-limiting illnesses in LMICs compared to other modern world countries [38][39][40][41] . Consequently, it is expected that people around the globe would have consumed a vast quantity of antimicrobials as self-medication due to the fear of COVID-19 30,42,43 . COVID-19 has led to the disruption of global AMR surveillance program 35,44 with increasing economic standstill due to lockdown and other social distancing measures that increase poverty in many countries of our planet 45 and increase the possibility of microbial resistance.…”