Use medicines for treatment not just to enhance health
Using medicines to enhance health, rather than for treatment or prevention of disease, is generally unacceptable, a survey of public attitudes in Denmark has revealed.
Researchers collected data from two sources, an internet-based survey
and a telephone interview survey, to find out whether people perceive
enhancement strategies as part of rational medicines use.
The researchers point out that over the past three decades medical practice
has increasingly focused on prevention. More recently, the strategy of
treating healthy individuals has been pushed further, with medicines
being used to enhance normal capabilities. “The goal for the ordinary
person can also be to become better than well,” they argue.
Of the internet survey respondents (462 from an estimated 1,600 people
contacted), only around one-third thought it was acceptable for healthy
individuals to use medicines to optimise their quality of life. A much
larger number (around 80 per cent) thought that society generally accepted
such usage.
The telephone survey focused on specific examples of medication, and
produced mixed results. Most people (around 60 per cent of the 961 people
who participated) accepted use of preventive influenza vaccination, but
there were less positive views on treatment for baldness, performance
anxiety, sexual enhancement and memory enhancement.
Younger respondents had a less negative attitude generally than older
age groups. Respondents aged 60 years and older had a more positive attitude
towards ’flu vaccination and memory enhancement. Nearly everyone
said that doping in sports was unacceptable.
The authors suggest that the tendency to use medicines for enhancement
may become stronger as the public abandon the traditional patient role
and adopt a more consumer-oriented role. They propose the term “Medically
enhanced normality” (MEN) to describe healthy individuals’ use
of medicines as enhancement and suggest it could become a framework for
analysing perceptions of what is seen as rational medicines use in contemporary
society (International Journal
of Pharmacy Practice 2003;11:243).
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