The 2013 report, “The use of drugs in Italy”, of the National Observatory on the Use of Medicines (OsMed) has been recently published.
The work, realised by the Italian Medicine Agency (AIFA) photographs the state of health of the population, providing a very detailed overview of drug use in Italy. The report incorporates also the analysis of the use of drug in the wider context of the organisation of pharmaceutical care, at national and regional level, providing also a comparison with the EU countries.
In 2013 each Italian consumed an average of 1.7 doses of medication per day (1,679 doses per day per 1.000 people), 70.4% of which was funded by the National Health Service. The total pharmaceutical public and private expense, amounted to 26.1 billion euro (+2.3% compared to 2012). Considering the costs by therapeutic area, at the first place there are drugs for the cardiovascular system (70.3 EUR per capita), followed by gastrointestinal and metabolic ones (60.3 EUR per capita). Orphan drugs registered a strong growth both in terms of cost and consumption, especially with regard to antineoplastic agents and immunomodulators.
A larger repertoire of quantitative and qualitative data on consumption and pharmaceutical cost, epidemiology, appropriateness prescriptive, adherence to drug therapy is available on the website of the Italian Medicines Agency.