Avaliação da prática de automedicação por alunos do curso de Saúde Coletiva da Universidade Federal do Sul e Sudeste do Pará durante a pandemia de COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presents animosities mainly with regard to the treatment and cure of the disease caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus, which was discovered in 2019. This research addresses the COVID-19 pandemic and seeks to describe the practice of self-medication experienced by students of the Collective Health course at the Federal University of the South and Southeast of Pará (UNIFESSPA). The study consisted of descriptive and quantitative research and the selection of the target audience was performed using the non-probabilistic convenience sampling technique. The students answered on online questionnaire about the use of medication during the pandemic, in order to assess whether there was a practice of self-medication. A total of 33 undergraduates participated in the research and 93.9% (N = 31) of the participants were female, predominantly between the ages of 19 and 26 and mostly single. We also describe that 51.5% of the students had COVID-19 and 27.3% are part of the risk group for pathologies such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension. It was observed that during the pandemic, 45.5% of the students used medication correctly, following prescription guidelines, while 27.3% of the participants used medication without prescription orientation in the case of COVID-19 or flu syndromes, being the main drugs used were vitamin C (60.6%), acetaminophen (48.5%), dipyrone (48.5%), ivermectin (36.4%), zinc (36.4%) and azithromycin (30 .3%). It was identified that the main influence for self-medication were previous prescriptions (15.2%) and family or friends (12.1%), in addition to the report of simple symptoms that could be treated alone (12.1%). It is noteworthy that 97% (N = 32) of the students reported knowing what self-medication is all about and 87% are adept at the practice even outside the

pandemic scenario in the treatment of symptoms of other health problems. Self- medication is a dangerous practice and totally harmful to health, thus giving rise to the

need to seek to reduce the practice among the population and social groups such as university students, especially those in the health area, such as Collective Health, public-target of this study, responsible for promoting the general well-being of users, including the rational use of medicines.