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[Common health disorders: self-care and self-medication]
N Tejedor1, E Zafra, Y Sánchez del Viso
1Centro de Salud Santa María de Benquerencia, Unidad Docente de Medicina de Familia y Comunitaria, Toledo.
Setting:
Community level. "Santa María de Benquerencia" Health District, Toledo.
Participants:
People over 15, chosen by random sampling from the municipal census, who stated that they had suffered some health disorder over the previous fortnight.
Measurements And Main Results:
212 surveys were accepted as valid (average age 42.75, 51.89% male and 48.11% female). 73% had suffered one of the disorders included in the survey during the previous fortnight. The commonest response was self-medication (39.84%), especially when dealing with pain and Pyrosis. Pyrazolones and Salicylates were the most commonly used drugs. The instructions were only read in 48.64% of cases. No measure was adopted in 34.56% of the disorders. The doctor was only consulted in 6.86% of cases. Both these responses were more common in men and young people. Non-pharmacological self-care was adopted in 30.07% of cases. This was generally of a dietetic or physical nature and was commoner in women and elderly people.
Conclusions:
Self-care, whether pharmacological or not, is the most common response to the perception of some symptom. These practices (especially self-medication because of its possible attendant problems) should be directed and used as one tool more in health care.