Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar-Apr;140(2):250-260.
doi: 10.1590/1516-3180.2021.0367.R1.23072021.

Effects and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on medicine use by employees of a Brazilian public university: a cross-sectional study

Waléria de Paula  1 , Wanessa Cecília de Oliveira  2 , Adriana Lúcia Meireles  3 , Renata Cristina Rezende Macedo do Nascimento  4 , Glenda Nicioli da Silva  5
Affiliations

Effects and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on medicine use by employees of a Brazilian public university: a cross-sectional study

Waléria de Paula et al. Sao Paulo Med J. 2022 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have had to adopt remote education, a strategy that caused sudden changes of routine for everyone involved in academia.

Objective: To assess the profile of medicine use by the employees of a Brazilian public university during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design and setting: Cross-sectional study at a Brazilian public university.

Methods: Employees were invited to answer an online self-administered questionnaire, containing questions on sociodemographic features, medicine use, mental health and lifestyle habits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The outcome variable was the use of medicines stratified according to occupation. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate (Poisson regression) statistical analyses were performed.

Results: A total of 372 employees participated in the study and use of medicine was reported by 53.2%. Among professors, suicide attempts (prevalence ratio [PR], 1.81; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20-2.74), physical activity (PR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.11-2.11) and poor self-rated health (PR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.01-1.66); and among technicians, decreased workload during the COVID-19 pandemic (PR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.00-1.99), excess body weight (PR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.02-1.88) and poor self-rated health (PR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.14-1.92) were positively associated with use of medicines. In addition, among technicians, engaging in physical activity (PR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.46-0.78) was a protective factor against medicine use.

Conclusion: The profile of medicine use among these employees was similar to that of the Brazilian population. However, some associated factors may have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, thus highlighting the need to examine this topic in a longitudinal study.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: All authors declare that they did not have any conflict of interest

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Prevalence of medicine use among technicians and professors, according to the first and second levels of Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Cucinotta D, Vanelli M. WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. Acta Biomed. 2020;91(1):157–60. doi: 10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):727-33. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ministério da Saúde, Brasil . Boletins Epidemiológicos. 2021. Available from: https://www.gov.br/saude/pt-br/assuntos/boletins-epidemiologicos.
    1. Anderson RM, Heesterbeek H, Klinkenberg D, Hollingsworth TD. How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? Lancet. 2020;395(10228):931–4. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30567-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Organização Pan-americana da Saúde - OPAS. Folha informativa sobre COVID-19 . 2020. Available from: https://www.paho.org/bra/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61....