Gesundheitskompetenz und Selbstmedikation

Abstract Health literacy and self-medication For more than two decades, health policy has assumed that the population of industrialized nations has generally good health literacy. Therefore policy-makers have left a bigger proportion of the health sector, in particular aspects of prevention and health promotion, to the free market. However, recent scientific studies have shown that this assumption does not apply to a large part of the population. Health literacy, with regard to drugs (medication literacy) is part of general health literacy. Although several studies exist on prescription medicines, virtually no p…