Papers of the Week

Self-medication for alleviating pain is very prevalent in most countries. While safe self-medication is supposed to be dependent on both patient's behaviour and pharmacist's counselling, little is known about the context of the delivery of analgesics available without prescription. The primary objective of the study was to define sociodemographic profiles and behaviours of patients seeking non-prescribed analgesics in French community pharmacies. Secondary objectives included the assessment of pharmacist management and identification of risk-associated patients.