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[Self care of common health disorders: results of a telephone survey of the general population].

BACKGROUND
Self-care of health problems including self-medication, constitutes the most frequent response to the most common acute symptoms in several studies carried out in other countries. Indeed there are few data concerning the scope of self-care in Spain.


METHODS
A telephone survey was carried out by a questionnaire of response limited to a sample of 660 homes in the city of Barcelona. In each home response was required by only one person between the ages of 15 and 80 on the common symptoms experienced within the previous 30 days and their behavior in response to the same.


RESULTS
In 448 homes response was obtained from adults on the habits of self-care or medical consultation in episodes of headache, lumbalgia, colds, diarrhea, fever or dysmenorrhea registered the previous month. The global rate of response was 70% with a higher number of refusals among men. Headache (42.8%), lumbalgia (41.7%) and colds (34.4%) were the most frequent symptoms with self-medication including physical and home remedies being the most common response.


CONCLUSIONS
Self-care for minor health problems is frequent in the population studied. The type of symptom in addition to age and sex appear to be the most important determining factors in this behavior.