self-medication, used medications, and symptoms among nurses providing care to pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019

Background and aims: the prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) among nurses who provide care to pregnant women may lead to self-medication (sm) among them as well as recommendation of sm to pregnant women. there is limited information about sm among nurses during the covid-19 pandemic. this study sought to evaluate sm, used medications, and symptoms among nurses providing care to pregnant women with covid-19. methods: this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study was conducted in a four-month period from march 21 to july 22, 2020. participants were 125 nurses who were providing care to pregnant women in imam reza teaching hospital, tabriz, iran. a sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire and a questionnaire on sm contributing factors were used to collect the data. the spss software (v. 21.0) was used to analyze the data at a significance level of less than 0.05 through the chi-square test. results: the prevalence of sm among nurses was 40.83%. sm had significant relationship with the use of antibiotics (p=0.012), herbal medicines (p=0.028), multivitamins (p=0.035), and analgesics (p=0.044). moreover, sm had significant relationship with nausea (p=0.036), fever (p=0.019), headache (p=0.044), and diarrhea (p=0.021). conclusion: sm is highly prevalent among nurses who provide care to pregnant women with covid-19.