Self-medication, used medications, and symptoms among nurses providing care to pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019

The prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among nurses who provide care to pregnant women may lead to self-medication (SM) among them as well as recommendation of SM to pregnant women. There is limited information about SM among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study sought to evaluate SM, used medications, and symptoms among nurses providing care to pregnant women with COVID-19.

This cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study was conducted in a four-month period from March 21 to July 22, 2020. Participants were 125 nurses who were providing care to pregnant women in Imam Reza teaching hospital, Tabriz, Iran. A sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire and a questionnaire on SM contributing factors were used to collect the data. The SPSS software (v. 21.0) was used to analyze the data at a significance level of less than 0.05 through the chi-square test.

The prevalence of SM among nurses was 40.83%. SM had significant relationship with the use of antibiotics (P=0.012), herbal medicines (P=0.028), multivitamins (P=0.035), and analgesics (P=0.044). Moreover, SM had significant relationship with nausea (P=0.036), fever (P=0.019), headache (P=0.044), and diarrhea (P=0.021).

SM is highly prevalent among nurses who provide care to pregnant women with COVID-19.