Statistics Portugal released the main results of the National Health Survey 2025 (INS 2025) on June 24, 2026. This Press Release provides a more detailed analysis of information relating to access to healthcare in 2025 in the following dimensions:
• hospital care, noting that 62.6% of those who reported having been hospitalized in the 12 months prior to the interview were 55 years of age or older;
• health care consultations, highlighting that 76.7% of the population with higher education has consulted a dentist in the 12 months prior to the interview;
• consumption of medicines, with the results showing that the highest percentage of non-prescribed medicines use is recorded among the population aged 35 to 44 years (40.4%);
• preventive care, indicating that, at the end of 2025, just over half of the population aged 50 and over reported having had a colonoscopy in the previous 10 years;
• reproductive health, concluding that the contraceptive pill is the most widely used method of contraception, having been reported by 61.5% of women aged 15 to 55 years who had used a contraceptive method in the 30 days prior to the interview;
• absence from work for health reasons, which was more expressive for women: 32.8% of employed women were absent from work due to health problems for at least one day in the 12 months prior to the interview; for men, it was 29.8%;
• health literacy, for which indicators show that literacy levels increase with length of schooling.
