Substance abuse, drug addiction and the role of primary health care amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The definition of substance abuse is the use of certain types of drugs such as alcohol, cannabis, hash, cocaine and others that have serious side effects and clinical complications. There is a significant difference between substance abuse and the term addiction. The significant difference between substance abuse and addiction is that drug addiction or substance addiction is classified as a chronic disease controlling the physical and mental ability of the individual to unpleasant force to use specific drugs such as cocaine or else. The literature has a positive correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and illegal drug abuse in substance abuse or addiction. COVID-19 caused emotional emptiness for many people around the world, in addition to anxiety and depression. The particular group of people started addicting to specific drugs to induce temporary happiness due to the unpleasant events they had from the pandemic. This article aimed to review the challenges of substance abuse and drug abuse in the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of public health in addition to primary care facilities against this phenomenon. To our knowledge, this is the first review providing a complex review about this issue since the beginning of COVID-19.