L’self-medication consists, for patients, of treating their daily ailments without going through the doctor, whether by going directly to the pharmacy to get the necessary drugs or by drawing on family reserves.
Without medical prescription
Which, translated into institutional language, gives the following definition adopted by the Council of the Order of Physicians: “Self-medication is the use, without medical prescription, by people for themselves or for their loved ones and of their own initiative, of medicinal products considered as such and having received marketing authorization (MA), with the possibility of assistance and advice from the pharmacist. »
Family or officinal medication
These remedies are said to be “optional medical prescription”.
Some may be reimbursable if prescribed by a doctor, but they are never self-medication. Purists also distinguish “family medication” from “officinal medication”, the latter concerning the care offered by the pharmacist to whom their problem is exposed. For the past five years, pharmacies have also been able to provide patients with medicines “over the counter”, which are completely free to access. Around 450 specialties are concerned among the approximately 4,000 products available without a prescription (out of the 9,500 specialties in total sold in pharmacies).
An expanding practice
The public authorities encourage it because they see it as a source of savings. It avoids consultations with the general practitioner and therefore limits the costs for social security.
Laboratories have a new market, which is all the more interesting as prices are free and advertising to the public is authorised. It allows them to relaunch medications old or whose health insurance has canceled reimbursement (venotonics, expectorants, etc.), judging their medical service rendered insufficient.
Patients gain above all in time and autonomy.
Another motivation: do not neglect any possibility to stay in good health, which is reflected in particular in the boom of food supplements.
