Frequency and causes of self-medication in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis, North of Iran, 2018–2019

Purpose Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a frequent respiratory disease. As self-medication is a common issue in the world, this study aimed to estimate its frequency in patients with CRS. Methods 144 CRS patients referred to a university hospital, were evaluated for self-medication, included type, duration, frequency, and its causes, their SNOT-22 questionnaire and Lund–MacKay scores. The data were analyzed using SPSS v.21 and the level of significance was considered as P ≥ 0.05. Results 30.6% of the cases used self-medication (65.9% used chemical drugs and 63.6% used herbal drugs), not associated with their age, gender, educational or economic level. The most common chemical drugs were antibiotics, analgesics and decongestants (75.9%, 55.2% and 10.3%, respectively) and the most common non-pharmaceutical agents included steam inhalation and herbal infusions (71.4%). The efficacy of self-medication was rated as “none” to “little” in 54.64% of cases. The mean SNOT-22 score was 59.54 ± 10.93 and 73.27 ± 8.12 in cases without and with self-medication ( P = 0.034), and the mean Lund–MacKay score was 11.8 ± 5.3 and 17.2 ± 4.3 in cases without and with self-medication, respectively ( P = 0.002). The top reasons for self-medication were “considering the disease unimportant” and believing chemical drugs being “harmful”, “expensive”, or “non-effective”. Most patients who used self-medication did “not” advise it to others (80%). Conclusion The high rate of self-medication in CRS patients calls for greater attention to this issue in these patients. It seems that self-medication is significantly associated with more severe grades of disease and lower QOL in CRS cases.