Self-medication: danger to life

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Extract from the article: L’automédication correspond à la prise d’un ou de plusieurs médicaments sur initiative personnelle, en l’absence de prescription médicale ou à une modification apportée sciemment au protocole d’une ordonnance. Au Togo, selon une étude réalisée en 200

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Self-medication is the practice of taking one or more medicines on one's own initiative, in the absence of a medical prescription or a deliberate change to the protocol of a prescription. In Togo, according to a survey carried out in 2003, 93% of respondents admitted to having self-medicated in the three months preceding the survey.

Self-medication concerns all categories of people. It ranges from the poorly educated to those with a higher level of education. It affects both men and women. « In Togo, the majority of people who self-medicate are aged between 17 and 35. Unfortunately, self-medication also affects children. Many mothers give medicines to their children without a prescription », says Dr Jean-Claude Bakpatina, General Practitioner at the Floréal clinic in Lomé.

Consequences of self-medication

Self-medication has a number of consequences for health, including: « drug toxicity or ineffectiveness due to non-compliance with the dose and dosage, the possibility of masking symptoms leading doctors to miss their diagnosis, the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and antimalarial drugs, and the occurrence of drug interactions and their consequences », stresses Dr Jean-Claude Bakpatina, General Practitioner. Added to these health consequences is the waste of resources invested without any convincing results.

Different forms of self-medication 

Apart from self-medication, where the patient or a family member fetches the product directly without a prescription, there is also pharmacy advice, which authorises the pharmacist to recommend certain medicines, known as « advice medicines ».This is why pharmacists dispense medicines such as paracetamol and certain vitamins.

The GP explains that self-medication can involve medicines sold in pharmacies or street medicines. « Both forms are used by patients, but it is above all the second form, where the patient goes out to the street to find the products, that is the most dangerous.Patients put themselves in danger twice over. They're putting themselves at risk by self-medicating, and they're putting themselves at risk by taking medicines from the street, the quality of which has not been checked », says Dr Bakpatina. says Dr Bakpatina.

There is also evidence of overuse of certain self-medication drugs. These include sleeping pills, painkillers including tramadol (used by motorbike taxi drivers) and aphrodisiacs.These different drugs can lead to « addiction, dependency and other effects, including heart attacks », insists the GP. 

Precautions to take to avoid self-medication

To avoid self-medication, always seek advice from an authorised prescriber, such as a doctor, medical assistant, nurse or midwife. « When in doubt about dosage, always ask for advice.Some patients swallow ova or gynaecological tablets when they are intended to be inserted into the vagina.Others, for example, swallow effervescent tablets without first dissolving them in half a glass of water, or worse still, some hypertensive patients take effervescent medicines with a high salt content when they shouldn't », advises Dr Jean-Claude Bakpatina. For all these reasons, the role of the pharmacist is emphasised.

William O.