Comportements vis à vis des medicaments et representations de soi chez des personnes agées souffrant de maladies chroniques

This research on a sample of 133 persons older than 60 years and suffering from chronic diseases, concerns their practices towards medicines. Various practices displayed can be grouped in three different ways according to the regularity and the order of medicine taking, forgetting, self-medication, etc.; they seem to be linked neither to sex or age of subjects nor to variables directly or indirectly affected by the disease (number and type of medicines, gravity of the disease, subjective health). The understanding of these differential practices is improved if we consider the self-concept of subjects, that is to say their different positions in an organized whole of personality traits; this position reflects traits that they recognize as being more or less constitutive of their identity, that which motivates and gives sense to the totality of their life conduct.