Table 3.
Prevalence of self-medication during the COVID-19 pandemic by continent, target population, time of data collection.
| Subgroup | Number of studies | Prevalence (95% CI) | Between studies | Between subgroups | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I2 | Pheterogeneity | Q | Q | Pheterogeneity | ||||
| Continent | Asia | 31 | 53 (45–61) | 99.40 | 0.001 | 11949.77 | 126.44 | 0.001 |
| Europe | 3 | 40.8 (35–46.8) | 92.06 | 0.001 | 14.43 | |||
| Africa | 11 | 41.5 (29.5–53.5) | 99.06 | 0.001 | 1160.27 | |||
| America | 10 | 47.8 (33.6–62) | 99.79 | 0.001 | 6933.03 | |||
| Target group | General population | 29 | 49 (41–57) | 99.73 | 0.001 | 18112.35 | 5.16 | 0.397 |
| Students | 11 | 54.5 (40.8–68.3) | 98.89 | 0.001 | 946.58 | |||
| Healthcare workers | 5 | 32.5 (16–49) | 99.07 | 0.001 | 520.00 | |||
| Patients with COVID-19 | 4 | 41.7 (25.5–58) | 97.72 | 0.001 | 195.87 | |||
| Others* | 6 | 53.5 (37.3–69.7) | 99.02 | 0.001 | 782.70 | |||
| Data collection time | 2020 | 31 | 48 (40.3–55.7) | 99.66 | 0.001 | 9891.97 | 23.00 | 0.891 |
| 2021 | 16 | 51.2 (40.5–61.8) | 99.34 | 0.001 | 2233.33 | |||
| Unknown | 8 | 49.7 (32.4–67) | 99.31 | 0.001 | 2061.28 | |||
*Inflammatory bowel disease patients; dental patients; pregnant and postpartum women, elderly, dermatology patients; faculty employed; and out patients.