New surveys confirm support for homeopathy in France and 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.