THE USE OF DRUGS IN ITALY: OSMED 2008 FINDINGS

Key words: Drug prescription, OsMed report, Consumption level

The data relative to the OsMed report on the drug prescription in Italy during 2008 are summed up in the present work. The total cost for drugs (public + private) was equal to 410 euros for each citizen, 24 billion euros, a much higher sum than the 20 billion dollars promised by G8 to fight hunger in Africa and in all the poor countries in the world. The cost is very variable among the regions (for drugs belonging to class A and totally paid for by the National Health Care System it totalled euro 277 for Calabria versus euro 149 for the Autonomous Province of Bolzano) and prescriptions, compared to those in 2007, increased of 5%-10%, depending on the drug class. Statins are the subgroup recording the highest expense, followed by the proton pump inhibitors. Italy is the country showing the highest consumption of antibiotics in Europe, indeed its expense is 5-6 times higher than that in Spain, Ireland and Belgium. Italian paediatrics outstands for the high consumption of cephalosporins of third generation and inhaled corticosteroids, a fact that indicates an inappropriate prescription. In Italy the consumption of antibiotics may be divided into two parts: the “virtuous” peripheral Regions (Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Liguria and Val d’Aosta) that show a relative low consumption level and the “non-virtuous” Regions of the South of Italy whose consumption level doubles that of the former ones.