Treatment Seeking Behavior for COVID-19 Symptoms Among Northern Iranian Population: A Cross-sectional Study

This study was conducted to investigate the treatment seeking behavior for COVID-19 symptoms among northern Iranian population and its related factors.

This hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the treatment seeking behavior for COVID-19 symptoms and its related factors in 602 confirmed COVID-19 cases for a period of 2 months between March and May 2020 in Guilan at the onset of the corona epidemic in Iran.

Professional treatment-seeking was observed in 18.6% of patients and most of patient reported home remedies (50.3%) and self-medication (31.1%) as first reaction to COVID-19 symptoms. The most prevalent symptoms of COVID-19 in the study population were anosmia (98.3%) and fever (70.1%). The multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that patients with breathing difficulties symptom and history of respiratory disease had greater odds professional treatment of seeking respectively (adjusted odds ratio (OR) =1.6, P=0.03, (OR) =3.3, P =0.001). 

Roughly half of symptomatic COVID-19 patient reported home remedies as first treatment-seeking behaviors and only breathing difficulties symptom and past history of respiratory disease were identified as an independent predictor of professional treatment–seeking. We will certainly face pandemics in the future. However, the world must obviously prepare for future pandemics in light of the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope that the results of this study can be a lesson for the future.