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Archived Comments for: The use of non-prescription medicine versus self-assessed health: evidence from Malawi

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  1. People's health perception.

    Edoardo Cervoni, Central Lancashire PCT NHS

    10 January 2012

    Dear Editor,
    I read with interest the paper titled "The use of non-prescription medicine versus self-assessed health: evidence from Malawi".
    In the discussion the Authors affirm their findings showed that non-prescription medication use "negatively influences individuals' perceived health as individuals who used such medicines were more likely to report lower levels of self-assessed health".
    I argue that the contrary could be the case, which is that the negative perception of health (being unwell) triggers the request for non-prescription medication.
    In their conslusion, the Authors somehow clarify the issue questioning the causal relationship.
    However, I am still unable to extrapolate from their findings how it can be said that the appropriate use of medicines plays a crucial role in improving people's perception of their health.
    Sincerely,
    E Cervoni, MD

    Competing interests

    None

  2. Re: people's health perception

    Jacob Novignon, University of Ibadan

    22 June 2012

    Dear E Cervoni, Thank you for your comments on our paper titled "The use of non-prescription medicine versus self-assessed health: evidence from Malawi".
    Our responses below:
    1. We did not question a causal relationship between use of non-prescription medicine and perceived health. Rather, we argued that our study sought to examine if the two variables have a
    relationship and not to test if one causes another. As you rightly said, we indicated in our discussion that a reverse relationship may hold true, though we did not examine the reverse relationship.

    2. Our intuition is that, non-prescription medicines pose a threat to an individual¿s state of health and their use could be detrimental to health status. Therefore, we argue that if people's perceived health is negatively influenced by their use of NPMs -as in the case of Malawi using the specific data- then we could say that their perceived health may be influenced positively (or improved) if they use appropriate medicines prescribed by qualified doctors. I hope this explanation helps.

    Jacob Novignon, Lead Author.

    Competing interests

    No competing interest

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