DISPENSATION OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS CONTROLLED BY ORDINANCE 344/1998, IN FEIRA DE SANTANA – BA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC PERIOD

Abstract

This study investigated the prevalence and increase in the sale of antidepressant pills in the city of Feira de Santana-BA, from March 2019 to February 2021, making timelines between March/2019 and February 2020 as a pre-pandemic period and March 2020 to February 2021 as a pandemic period. The data show that medications such as Amitriptyline 25mg, Fluoxetine 20mg, Escitalopram 10mg and Sertraline 50mg were already well used as antidepressant drugs, but during the pandemic, this number grew. Factors that may be associated with this growth are isolation and social distancing, financial insecurity because of the lockdown and the fear of death caused by the virus were caused by the covid-19 pandemic. The results obtained also contributed to the evaluation of the measures of medications dispensed between the dates mentioned above, demonstrating an analysis between sales under dispensing of antidepressant medications.