Pharmaceutical and Italian health service among consumption and social construction in Italy

In this paper we retrace with a historical changes in the use and prescription of drugs and how this change fits within the new systems of health. The drug should be seen as social and as a cultural product (Fainzang, 2006; Tognetti Bordogna 2007) it is a good explanatory of the health behaviours of individuals and closely related to the cultural model of health and illness in a given society.

The drug is a complex object, as product of social practices varied over time, from context to context, whose significance goes well beyond its curative function (Tognetti Bordogna, 2009; Conrad, 1992).

The pharmacology, pharmacotherapy, production, demand and consumption of drugs represent different aspect of a reality, social and care, ranging from the purely scientific aspects to the cultural and existential (Busfield, 2006).

In today’s society, it is well-rooted belief, rightly or wrongly, that you can not feel good without taking drugs.

It makes no sense to speak of prescriptive measure if not integrated with concepts of matrix sociological, anthropological and philosophical. The drug is more than just a tablet or vial, is something inanimate becomes a useful aid that fits within the doctor-patient relationship.

In the paper we will analyze in sociological perspective, the consumption of drugs in relation to the practices and in relation to the Italian Regional Health Systems, considering how and whether the consumer can change in relation to the organizational model of the Regional Health Service (Tognetti Bordogna, 2010).

After an analysis of major sociological approaches to the study of the drug retrace the historical evolution and the succession of the idea of drug in Italy and then dwell on how, and if, the different regional health systems weigh in on the organizational prescription and in taking the drug, based on data from secondary sources.