ISSN: 2639-2038
Authors: Ana Cláudia SM, Tailine Maíra GP, Matheus DGC* and Lucas TRM
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the lives of millions of people and brought the most diverse damage to all of humanity, and, as a result, the discovery of therapies capable of halting the devastating action of the SARS-Cov-2 virus is imminent. Several drugs have been evaluated regarding their possibility of being useful in the prevention and/or control of this viral disease, but there are still no results that allow their use to contain the progression of the pandemic, however, the dissemination and indication of use and ease of access to such substances may have led the population to self-medicate, which ends up increasing the risks and minimizing the benefits of such substances. The present work is a retrospective and exploratory study, which aimed to evaluate the consumption and the occurrence of adverse effects resulting from the consumption of medicines for the treatment of COVID-19, by citizens residing in the metropolitan region of Vale do Paraíba. The main tool for making the project viable consisted of a questionnaire developed by the researchers themselves, dealing with the practice of drug consumption and adverse reactions resulting from the consumption of drugs claimed to be effective in preventing COVID-19. It was observed that self-medication had a low adherence (25,58%) , that ivermectin was the most used drug in this process (67,27%) and that there were adverse reactions, mainly diarrhea (55,55%) but they were not serious, however the importance of pharmaceutical care aimed at the rational use of medications should be highlighted, since, if for the research participants, the reactions were little impactful, with the increase in their irrational use, a greater possibility of occurrence of more serious adverse reactions may be possible.
Keywords: COVID-19; Self-Medication; Early Treatment
