Effects of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on medical advice seeking and medication practices of home-bound non-COVID patients

BACKGROUND: Many countries are implementing measures for social distancing to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The Indian government also issued an order for complete lockdown of the country, with all the nonessential services, including most of the services for nonemergency health issues, being temporarily suspended. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to understand the effect of pandemic lockdown on medical advice-seeking behavior and the medication practices of the non-COVID Indian patients confined to homes, who would have normally visited the outpatient departments (OPDs) for medical advice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study conducted online during the lockdown period. The questions dealt with medical advice-related practices, self-medication, the sources of medical advice, and the need to visit emergency department. Evaluation of data was done as for descriptive studies. RESULTS: A total of 106 people (34%) out of the 312 participants had either old or new health problems. Ninety-six of such people (90.5%) tried to manage their sufferings by either continuing the drugs prescribed earlier or by making phone calls to doctors along with taking the help of home remedies, if needed. Ten (9.5%) of the symptomatic participants did not consult any doctor waiting for natural course of relief. None of the participants practiced self-medication of modern medicine therapy. Only one participant (of the total 312) took hydroxychloroquine as self-medication for assumed prophylactic therapy against the COVID-19 infection. CONCLUSION: Most of the people with medical conditions, confined at home due to national lockdown, are coping with their problems without any irrational self-medication with modern medicines or any misuse of prophylactic therapy against the COVID infection. This seemingly positive trend may also have been due to the strict enforcement of the lockdown rules by the law enforcement agencies.