Patients’ approach to medicines in COVID-19

Several different guidelines and therapeutic recommendations have been reported for the treatment of COVID-19 since the announcement of the pandemic. In our study, the attitudes and approaches of patients with a medical indication for COVID-19 who were given drugs towards drug usage were evaluated. We aimed to present our data on the drug usage characteristics of patients to contribute to the literature. A total of 399 patients were included in the study. In the study, 51.1% of the patients were female, and 48.9% were male. The highest number of the patients were in the 18-30 age group (27.6%), the lowest number of the patients were 65 years old or older (9.8%). Twenty-five questions prepared by the researchers were asked to the patients to evaluate "their knowledge and attitudes on drug usage and disease prevention in COVID-19." Of the patients, 75.7% were not smokers. No history of chronic disease was present in 65.5% of the patients. It was determined that no drug was recommended for 9.8% of the patients, and hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir were recommended together in 49.9%. The rate of the use of chloroquine alone was 4.8%, and the rate of using only favipiravir was 32.8%. Eighty-two percent of the patients reported that they regularly used the drugs that were recommended. Among the patients, 11.5% either never used the recommended drugs or did not use them at the recommended dose and time. Of the 46 (11.5%) patients who did not use the prescribed drugs regularly, none died. In other words, improvement was observed in the patients who did not use the drugs that were recommended to them. Our aim in this study was to determine the rate and characteristics of the drugs prescribed by physicians in diagnosed patients. In this cross-sectional sample of Turkey, it was determined that the rate of recommended drug usage was sufficient with the data of the city where the study was carried out.