Danes' use of over-the-counter (OTC) painkillers is often debated. The Danish Medicines Agency's website on medicine sales in Denmark, www.medstat.dk, shows that the consumption of pain-relieving OTC medicines increased by 23 per cent from 1996 to 2010. When we take into account the population growth in the same period and look at the consumption per 1,000 inhabitants, the increase is 17 per cent.
To shed further light on this figure, this report looks more closely at the distribution of sales between the different active substances and the different pack sizes, as well as at the quantity of these OTC medicines sold on prescription.
The pain-relieving OTC medicines included in this report contain the active substances paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid, ibuprofen and phenazone. Some of the medicines are combination products and also contain e.g. caffeine or small quantities of codeine.
Please find the Danish report to the right.
