European Coalition on
Homeopathic & Anthroposophic
Medicinal Products
New surveys confirm support for homeopathy in France and Italy
Two new market surveys confirm solid support for homeopathy amongst patients in France and in Italy.
Recent market surveys confirm solid support amongst patients for homeopathy in France and in Italy.
A new market survey by Ipsos (November 2018) confirms that homeopathy is deeply rooted in the French approach to health. Three out of four French people hold a good image of homeopathy, just behind the image they hold of regular conventional medicines such as paracetamol or ibuprofen. 77% of French people have taken homeopathic medicines at some point in their life, the majority (58%) several times and nearly all (87%) say their close family or friends have used homeopathy. Over 40% of French people have been using homeopathy for more than 10 years.
French users of these products have a high level of confidence in the effectiveness of these medicines – 72% say they experienced positive benefits when they last used the products and 74% consider these products to be effective. 70% of French would use homeopathy as a first treatment solution and half have used homeopathy as a more serious treatment over a longer period. A similar proportion believe that homeopathic medicines should be offered to patients alongside conventional medicine and 83% support the right of doctors to prescribe homeopathy alongside conventional treatment in certain cases. A considerable proportion of French people (74%) are opposed to the proposal to discontinue the reimbursement of these products; half of all French are completely opposed to it.
At the same time, a survey published by Omeoimprese (November 2018), the Italian trade association for homeopathic medicines, reports on the growing confidence of doctors and pharmacists in homeopathic medicinal products. 80% of the Italian population know about homeopathic medicine and 17% of Italians use these products, that is 9 million Italians who use homeopathic medicines at least once a year. 39% use these products as a result of word of mouth recommendation by friends and relatives but increasingly those who use homeopathic medicines do so on the recommendation of pharmacists (28%) and general practitioners specialised in these medicines (20%). The majority of Italian users are aged between 35 and 54 and 69% are female.