The novel coronavirus disease COVID pandemic has affected several countries worldwide, resulting in a considerable strain on healthcare systems and increased trend of self-medication practices. This study aims to evaluate the awareness of COVID and the prevalence of self-medication during the pandemic among residents in Mogadishu, Somalia. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured and pretested questionnaire between May and January Participants from various disciplines were randomly recruited within the study location and interviewed about their self-medication practices during the pandemic.
A total of residents participated in the study. Most participants The most prevalent drug used by participants for self-medication against COVID was paracetamol The factors associated with awareness of COVID and self-medication practices included age, gender, educational qualification, and occupation.
This study revealed considerable high self-medication practices among Mogadishu residents, thus highlighting the need to promote awareness regarding the adverse effects of self-medication and sanitisation guidelines in addressing COVID at the community level. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The fear and apprehension following the outbreak of COVID and its subsequent global spread to most continents of the world are palpable in Africa. Factors such as high population density, poorly funded public health sector, and lack of testing facilities in most African countries led to the projections by global public health experts that the pandemic could be catastrophic in the region [ 1 ].
