A qualitative exploration of the prescribing and use of statins in asymptomatic people in Ireland

A case of medicalisation, biomedicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation

Bibliographic Data

ID4218482
AuthorsPaula Byrne (0000-0002-9034-5154, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway, corresponding author), Órla O’donovan (0000-0002-0236-3898, University College Cork), Susan M Smith (0000-0001-6027-2727, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland), John Cullinan (0000-0003-3509-0635, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway)
Year2021
Volume25
Issue5
Pages630-648
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363459320946067
PMID32715773
OpenAlexW3045922630
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited58

There has been a notable increase in the use of statins in people without cardiovascular disease but who may be at risk in the future. The majority of statin users now fall into this category but little research has focused exclusively on this group. Debate has ensued regarding medicating asymptomatic people, and processes described variously as medicalisation, biomedicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation are used to explain how this happens. These overlapping and interrelated processes require issues to be 'problemised' as medical problems requiring medical solutions given the prevailing understandings of health, risk and disease. However, current understandings of risk and disease are not simply the result of technological and scientific advances, they are also socially constructed. We interviewed members of the public, GPs and others, and found that rather than high cholesterol being seen as one of several risk factors that contributes to heart disease, it tended to be promoted simplistically to the status of a disease needing treatment of itself. Statins were justified by those taking them as different to 'unnecessary medicines'. However, some participants demonstrated resistance to statins, worried about over-medicalisation and deviated from accepted practices, indicating a complex 'muddling through' in the face of uncertainty

Asymptomatic · Disease · Medicalization · Pathology · Psychiatry · Public health · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Healthcare cost, quality, practices · Medicine · Nursing · Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy · Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare · Psychology · Surgery

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