Room for improvement: Global Self-Care Readiness Index ranks Canada fifth out of 10 countries

According to the 2022 Global Self-Care Readiness Index, Canada is behind other countries in taking advantage of self-care opportunities. Canada scored at 2.77 out of 4, which put it behind the United States, Britain, Australia, and Germany. The index, which was sponsored by the Global Self Care Federation (GSCF), defines self-care broadly, building off of the World Health Organization’s definition. It includes what people can do to improve their individual health, including making healthy lifestyle choices, using medications responsibly, managing coughs and other minor ailments well, recognizing the symptoms of common illnesses, and managing their own, known health conditions. Pharmacists were highlighted as common providers of self-care services. “Interactions between pharmacists and consumers often include the provision of self-care; some pharmacists might be giving extensive self-care advice,” Dr. Sarah Dineen-Griffin, a PhD Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia, said in the report. In Australia, pharmacists offer many self-care services, such as dietary advice, immunizations, health checks, checking blood pressure and weight, and helping patients manage ailments including sleep apnea, asthma, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Read: Self-care/OTC myth busters: Decongestants and rhinitis medicamentosa The Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada (FHCP), said the report showed the need for Canadians to have the ability to treat minor ailments without seeing a doctor. “Increasing self-care options for Canadians would eliminate hundreds of thousands of visits to doctors every year and free up billions of dollars to help solve the crisis in access to care,” said Michael Graydon, CEO of the FHCP, said in a press release. “We need a national Self-Care Strategy that will help people take better care of themselves and ensure they can access a broader range of self-care products and services when they need them.” The study also incorporated the ability to access personal health records, and whether tax policies favoured prescription medications over non-prescription ones. “One recent study showed that reclassifying just three categories of products from prescription to non-prescription status could save $500 million in drug costs and $250 million in fewer doctor visits every year,” said Graydon. “Yet it takes on average more than two years to reclassify a drug in Canada compared with less than a quarter of that time in Britain and under a year in the United States.” Read: Making the case for pharmacists’ role in self-care

Room for improvement: Global Self-Care Readiness Index ranks Canada fifth out of 10 countries

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