Information sources regarding common cold medicines in Latvia

Changes regarding patient empowerment are taking place nowadays. Users of medicines are becoming more educated, confident and want to be involved in their healthcare issues. Cases when users of medicines do not consult medical specialists but take decisions based on their own knowledge or other sources show the global tendency of self-medication. Self-medication is easy to be implemented in cases when illness symptoms are not heavy, e. g., conventional common cold. A quantitative study in Latvia, examining information sources during the previous common cold episode and the opinion about the availability of non-commercial information for medicine users, showed that "friends and relatives" were consulted most often. Medical specialists took the fourth and the sixth place, respectively. The research data have shown that people feel they lack independent (non-commercial) information about medicines for treating or relieving symptoms of common cold as only less than one fifth of the population consider such information fully available in Latvia. The global tendency of self-medication needs to be supported by healthcare professionals offering consumers good quality information about medicines. Medical nurses involved into patient consultations about common cold related issues can considerably facilitate the work of physicians. A non-commercial source about healthcare-related issues, including medicines, has to be established.