Self-Medication And Health Economics

Health economics studies on self-medication, aimed at analyzing thepotential savings which national health systems would make should there be a clear policy promoting self-medication, have been carried out in several European Union member states and released in the past few months.

These show that cuts in public health spending and a more rational allocation of resources would indeed derive from more personal responsibility for health, coupled with an enhanced counseling role for pharmacists in treating minor ills and use of non-prescription and non-reimbursed medicines. The 1997 European Proprietary Medicines Manufacturers Association (AESGP) conference heard studies concerning France, Germany and Italy.

The most recent studies, commissioned by the Self-Medication Forum in Switzerland and released in late September, show that consistently applying self-medication in treating minor "health disorders" (excluding long-lasting illnesses or accidents) could achieve savings of about 150 million Swiss francs ($106 million) per year.