key: cord-0709585-3ca6tflc authors: Onchonga, David title: A Google Trends study on the interest in self-medication during the 2019 novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease pandemic date: 2020-06-18 journal: Saudi Pharm J DOI: 10.1016/j.jsps.2020.06.007 sha: 818f08a8afff962bec4225087fe5051794868a12 doc_id: 709585 cord_uid: 3ca6tflc nan David Onchonga a * a Doctoral School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pécs-Hungary * Corresponding Author: onchonga7@gmail.com, Onchonga.david@etk.pte.hu The world is scuffling with the novel 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (Lai et al., 2020; Weiss and Leibowitz, 2011; Zu et al., 2020) , that is spreading fast, endangering lives of millions of people in many parts of the world (T, 2003) . On 1 st June 2020, the total number of coronavirus disease reported globally was 6,294,051 with 374,405 deaths and 53,497 patients in critical condition. Although there has been reported 2,864,641 recoveries, some countries like the United States of America, Brazil and Russia are reporting exponential numbers on daily basis with Russia reporting 9,035 new positive cases in one day(WHO, 2020). The current state has complicated the already flimsy healthcare systems globally and more specifically in resource-limited settings, particularly those offering maternal and child health services. (Onchonga et al., 2020a (Onchonga et al., , 2020b . Self-medication which is also known as self-care/self-administration is a world-wide practise where persons, families and/or communities choose medications to treat health conditions or indications without the opinion of a medical profession (Lei et al., 2018) and it is becoming a significant area of interest in healthcare research as it gives individuals with minor ailments freedom to make independent choices on how to manage their individual health and wellbeing without necessarily going to hospital. During the current pandemic, self-medication will greatly ease the burden levied to skilled physicians, pharmacists and other allied frontier healthcare professionals in dealing with minor ailments. It will also create sufficient room for clients who may need urgent and lifesaving care, more so those diagnosed with coronavirus disease as they may require sophisticated management due to the virulence nature and also the possibility of nosocomial infections in public and private health facilities (Jarvis and Epidemiology Branch, Hospital Infections Program, 1991) . As the world is struggling to contain the coronavirus disease, millions of people are frantically looking for health related information online. The Google Trends search has become a valuable source of information particularly on the general health trends (Heerfordt and Heerfordt, 2020) . Google Trends (trends.google.com) provides evidence on how many 'hits' different words had on a particular day on Google. The interest of a particular word is quantified as relative search volume (RSV) with 100 indicating the highest interest and 0 showing no interest at all. In this study, the aim was to investigate the interest in self-medication/ self-care and/or selfadministration of medicines during the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic. As per the objectives of this study, the following MeSH terms(U.S. National Library of Sience, 2020) were retrieved: 'self-medication', 'self-care', and 'self-administration', between 7 th January 2020 to 1 st June 2020 with the intention of studying whether there was worldwide increased interest in getting online information regarding self-medication during the pandemic. Figure 1 -3 shows the trends of the web search queries 'self-medication, 'self-care' and/or 'selfadministration'. The trends show a relative increase in the number of searches worldwide since the global pandemic was declared, and this would be an indication that there has been an increased interest in the number of people searching for information about self-medication of various ailments during the pandemic. There is need for individuals with minor diseases and infections to get relevant information on self-medication especially for minor ailments during this period of global emergency so that there can be room for serious medical cases that may need admissions and further management in hospitals. This will not only reduce the unnecessary hospital infections, but will create an enabling environment for the already overstretched human resources for health. Worldwide trends of 'Self-Medication' Google hits Worldwide trends of 'Self-care' Google hits Has there been an increased interest in smoking cessation during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic? A Google Trends study Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19): The epidemic and the challenges Self-medication practice and associated factors among residents in Wuhan, China Prevalence of fear of childbirth in a sample of gravida women in Kenya Midwife-led integrated prebirth training and its impact on the fear of childbirth. A qualitative interview study SARS coronavirus: a new challenge for prevention and therapy MeSH Descriptor Data 2020 COVID-19 situation reports Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Perspective from China There was no ethical approval since the data used is freely available online and it is anonymous.