Self Medication : A Practice That Can Hide Another
Today, more than ever, the practice of self-medication is the object of close attention, from health professionals as well as from the social sciences. Not because it is a new practice, but because it has been recently encouraged, in France, by public policies. In this new context, we must enquire into the motivations and conditions behind this recourse. Drawing on fieldwork investigations, we will show that recourse to self-medication is not limited to curing benign pathologies, as recommended in health messages. Nor is it an answer to new economic measures which accompany access to medicines. Self-medication sometimes rather represents an attempt to bypass general practitioners, which corresponds to an avoidance strategy.