In a short span, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has captured global consciousness by significantly affecting the day-to-day life of humans and emerged as a public health emergency. Undoubtedly, it indicates that lessons learnt from the past epidemics of coronaviruses such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), had not enough and thus left us ill-prepared to deal with the challenges that COV-ID-19 pandemic is currently posing. Currently, as a global pandemic, COVID-19 poses major challenges and thus forcing the entire world to lockdown. However, the disease has prepared humankind in facing such outbreaks at present as well as in the future. Besides, it has also taught numerous lessons that are worth considering and implementing to make the world a better reality.

Background: Self-medication (SM) is a practice of using medications to treat the self-diagnosed symptoms without legitimate prescription by a health care professional. Alongside posing burden on to a patient, SM practices are associated with certain unfavourable health conditions such as drug-resistance, adverse effects, drug-interactions, including death. Objective: To systematically review and quantify the prevalence of SM practices and its associated factors in India. Methodology: A comprehensive systematic search was performed using scientific databases such as PubMed and Cochrane library for the peer-reviewed research articles that were conducted in India without any language and date restrictions. Studies which are cross-sectional by design and assessing the prevalence and predictors of SM practices in India were considered for the review, and all the relevant articles were screened for their eligibility. Results: Of 248 articles, a total of 17 articles which comprises of 10,248 participants were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, the mean prevalence of SM practices in India was observed to be 53.57%. Familiarity with the medication appears to be a major reason to practice SM (PR: 30.45; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 17.08-43.82; 6 studies), and the practice was noticed more among individuals from a middle-lower class family with a prevalence rate of 26.31 (95%CI: 2.02-50.60; P<0.0001). Minor ailments were the primary reason for practising SM (PR: 42.46; 95%CI: 21.87-63.06), among which headache was the most commonly reported (PR: 41.53; 95%CI: 18.05-65.02). Conclusion: Prevalence of self-medication practices are observed quite high in India. While, NSAIDs and anti-allergic are the most frequently utilized self-medicated drugs used for headache and cold & cough.

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OBJECTIVES: To address and elucidate the impact of pharmacist-led home medicines review (HMR) services on identifying drug-related problems (DRPs) among the elderly population in home care settings.METHODS: A comprehensive systematic search was performed using electronic scientific databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science for studies published between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2018, pertaining to HMR services by pharmacists for identifying DRPs.RESULTS: In total, 4,292 studies were retrieved from the searches, of which 24 were excluded as duplicates. Titles and abstracts were screened for the remaining 4,268 studies, of which 4,239 were excluded due to the extraneous nature of the titles and/or abstracts. Subsequently, 29 full-text articles were assessed, and 19 were removed for lacking the outcome of interest and/or not satisfying the study’s inclusion criteria. Finally, 10 studies were included in the review; however, publication bias was not assessed, which is a limitation of this study. In all studies, pharmacists identified a highly significant amount of DRPs through HMR services. The most common types of DRPs were potential drug-drug interactions, serious adverse drug reactions, need for an additional drug, inappropriate medication use, non-adherence, untreated indications, excessive doses, and usage of expired medications.CONCLUSIONS: HMR is a novel extended role played by pharmacists. The efficiency of such programs in identifying and resolving DRPs could minimize patients’ health-related costs and burden, thereby enhancing the quality of life and well-being among the elderly.

Background As stroke is a catastrophic illness, knowing its risk factors, early signs and symptoms, and management strategies could potentially prevent morbidity and mortality among the people. Objectives The aim of this study is to determine the public cognizance of risk factors, signs and symptoms, and early treatment options available for stroke with particular emphases on thrombolysis, and its window period. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional telephonic interview-based survey was conducted in the states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh of North India from August 2017 to December 2017. Results Of 350 respondents those participated in the survey with a mean age ± standard deviation of 39.93 ± 13.41  years, hypertension was found to be the most common risk factor among the study participants (n = 205, 58.57%) and 28.85% of the study participants were not aware of the risk factors, whereas 46% of the participants were not aware of warning signs of stroke. The window period of thrombolysis was compared with gender, and it was found that the higher number of male participants (n = 49) adduced the right window of thrombolysis (0–4.5  hours) as compared with the female participants (n = 26). Conclusions Survey results suggested that there exists scant information about risk factors, alarming signs, and early treatment approaches among community adults toward stroke. In this regard, there is an immense need to conduct awareness camps related to stroke to educate the vulnerable public.