english.prescrire.org > Positions > Overmedication

Positions > Theme:

Overmedication

We’ve got a pill for just about everything these days. Healthcare professionals are under pressure to prescribe medications which may do no good, and might even do much harm. How can we resist the urge to overmedicate existence?

Thanks, but no thanks...

Many ills can be at least partly alleviated by drugs, and many people rely on drugs to help them feel better. But drugs are not always the best solution. Patients and healthcare professionals must know when to say “Thanks, but no thanks: I see nothing to justify taking the associated risks.”

The constant practitioner

Faced with a patient’s suffering, healthcare professionals must first listen, discuss and explain, and then offer the treatment whose harm-benefit balance is the most acceptable. Especially when the patient thinks that a drug is a miracle cure for whatever is ailing him or her at the moment: a little feel-good pill, with no adverse effects.

Mental health: putting patients first

The current emphasis on mental health should not be seen as an opportunity to medicalise everything or to propose insufficiently evaluated drugs. While mental suffering is very real, the solutions do not always involve the prescription of medicine or drugs. This suffering cannot justify the sale of inadequately evaluated drugs.

Winners and losers: women and testosterone

The approval of testosterone (Intrinsa°), a male hormone, to increase women’s sexual satisfaction, is yet another example of poor decision-making by regulatory agencies, a gamble in which only the public stands to lose.

Shaping diseases: marketing departments flex their wings

Commercial strategies are being designed to modify the social perception of diseases and to create as close a link as possible between a pharmaceutical brand name and a health condition. Healthcare professionals must keep a critical mind and refuse to allow commercial interests to decide who is and who isn’t sick.