lnfluence of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Prescriptions in Pharmacy

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 created a big impact on society, including insurance pharmacies. In this study, we investigated the receipt data of our 673 pharmacies, operated by the group from December 2018 to December 2020, and compared the trends in 2019 and 2020. The data were grouped into four distinct periods: before the enforcement of temporary school closure, after the enforcement of temporary school closure, after the declaration of emergency, and after the start of ‘GoTo Travel’ campaign. In 2020, the average number of prescriptions per day decreased from prior to the declaration of the state of emergency to the start of GoTo Travel campaign and after the start of GoTo Travel campaign, and was 90.2% and 93.5% to that of 2019, respectively. For patients in under 18 age group, the daily average number of prescriptions was significantly lower in 2020 than in 2019 following the enforcement of temporary school closure, A similar pattern prevailed for acute disease medications such as cold remedies, but there was no significant difference for chronic disease medications such as diabetes medications in all four periods. Based on these results, we infer that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the demand for prescriptions to acute diseases at insurance pharmacies.