Adverse impacts of medicine shortages on patients Europe 2024| Statista

According to a survey conducted in late 2024 and early 2025, over 61 percent of European countries who reported experiencing medicine shortages in their countries during the last 12 months reported increased co-payments as an adverse impact. This graph shows the adverse impacts of medicine shortages on patients in European countries who reported medicine shortages.

Adverse impacts of medicine shortages on patients in European countries who reported medicine shortages as of 2024

Characteristic	Percentage of respondent countries
Cause distress and inconvenience	100%
Interruption of treatments	82%
Increased co-payments	61%
Less trust in medicines/pharmacies/healthcare system	61%
Sub-optimal treatment/inferior efficacy	57%
Medication errors	46%
Adverse events/greater toxicity	32%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%110%

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Release date

2025

More information

Region

Europe

Survey time period

November 20, 2024, to January 24, 2025

Number of respondents

26 PGEU member countries

Supplementary notes

Original question: "In your experience, how have medicine shortages adversely affected patients in your country? Tick all that apply."
Countries who participated in the survey include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden. Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Medicine shortage was defined as every (temporary) inability for a community or hospital pharmacy to supply patients with the medicinal product requested as a result of factors beyond their control, requiring the dispensing of an alternative agent or even discontinuation of an ongoing medical therapy.

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