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When taking medication, many French people do not respect the doses, seek advice from a loved one rather than a professional or use an expired product. However, if used incorrectly, a treatment can be dangerous for your health.
What do we know about the misuse of medicines by the French?
According to a study carried out in 2021 for the National Medicines Agency (ANSM), three in ten French people adapt, by themselves, the dose or duration of the medications prescribed to them.
One in five French people take higher doses or several medications at the same time to relieve symptoms more quickly.
Nearly one in two French people give medication to a loved one because they have similar symptoms, one in ten even does it systematically or often.
And 34% consider it low risk to take an expired medication.
What are the risks ?
Not following the instructions can reduce the effectiveness of medications, cause undesirable effects, or even worsen the disease, underlines the ANSM, which is launching a campaign on their proper use on Wednesday. A “major public health issue”, according to its general director, Christelle Ratignier-Carbonneil.
“Even paracetamol can be dangerous: in the event of an overdose, the person risks their life“, warned Catherine Simonin, administrator at France Assos Santé, associated with the campaign.
“There is always a notion of benefit-risk, a drug is never trivial“, also insists Carine Wolf-Thal, president of the national council of the Order of Pharmacists.
Prescribed or recommended for one person, medications may prove useless or harmful to another. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen or aspirin, which are among the most used treatments in self-medication, are for example prohibited in pregnant women. After the 5th month of pregnancy, a single dose can cause the death of the future baby.
Once expired or poorly stored, medications can also lose their effectiveness or be contaminated by bacteria.
What are the right actions to adopt?
In his campaign – “medicines are not ordinary products, let’s not take them lightly” – the ANSM advocates four reflexes to adopt.
She recommends following the prescription or advice of the healthcare professional (dose, frequency, duration, etc.).
It encourages you to only use medications prescribed or recommended by a caregiver, and not by someone close to you.
She recommends not taking several medications at the same time without professional advice.
Finally, she invites us to pay attention to the methods and shelf life of medicines. A medication must be returned to the pharmacy when it is expired or unused. It should not be thrown in the trash or down the toilet.
What do industrialists think?
For the industry, good use of medicines is a “essential element to optimize their therapeutic value“, summarizes to AFP Eric Baseilhac, president of the association for the proper use of medicines and director of economic and international affairs for Leem (Federation of pharmaceutical companies).
He assures that to avoid causing confusion and mixtures, manufacturers take care to “make the drugs very distinguishable from each other”.
But “there is still progress to be made in terms of therapeutic education“, he concedes.
What avenues for improvement?
“Tomorrow, if we had digital instructions, we could very easily, with QR codes, send patients to watch short therapeutic education films for a medication that is a little complex to take.“, suggests Mr. Baseilhac. He cites the example of inhaled treatments for chronic bronchial diseases, sometimes used by a young audience and not always very easy to handle.
Leem is working on a project for the proper use of the drug in cases of angina, which should see the light of day in early 2024.
“We have imagined a voluntary care pathway which would allow the patient to go directly to their pharmacist in the event of a sore throat. They will have the possibility of carrying out a rapid test to determine whether its origin is bacterial or viral”explains Mr. Baseilhac.
“This will make it possible to optimize the prescription of antibiotics wisely whereas today they are over-prescribed“, which, he recalls, is “catastrophic in terms of antibiotic resistance“.