Indeed, the NPI Registry contributes to the development of precision medicine. For example, how can we advance this field in the non-pharmacological treatment of pain without confusing patients when a prestigious medical school like Stanford publishes such a vague, incomplete, and unranked list on its website?

• Physical activity
• Acupressure
• Acupuncture
• Application of heat or cold
• Aquatherapy
• Art therapy
• Biofeedback
• Family coaching
• Individual coaching
• Psychological conditioning
• Desensitization
• Therapeutic education
• Occupational therapy
• Horticultural therapy
• Hypnosis
• Physiotherapy
• Massage lotions
• Meditation
• Music therapy
• Posturology
• Companion presence
• Psychosocial support
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS)
• Comfort therapy
• Theatre therapy
• Psychosocial therapy
• Tonification and strengthening
• Yoga

How many hopes dashed? How much time wasted? How many futile efforts? How much money squandered? How many unnecessary carbon emissions from transport? This subtly highlights pharmacological treatments and pain surgeries, which have precise contents and proven effects. The NPIS and its partners propose a solution to break this deadlock in favor of those affected by health issues. The goal is to provide reliable information on the most relevant NPI. It is also about no longer opposing pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies, but rather associating them wisely and at the right time.

The term non-pharmacological intervention (NPI) was not chosen by the scientific society NPIS but has become necessary. It has been used by scientists since 1975. Various authorities and agencies have adopted it, including the World Health Organization since 2003, the French National Authority for Health since 2011, the National Solidarity Fund for Autonomy since 2014, the Ministry of Health since 2018, the High Council for Public Health since 2019, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control since 2020, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs since 2022, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council since 2023, and Health Insurance since 2024. Many national and supranational scientific societies use the term NPI in their recommendations. These health solutions are often "squeezed" between health products and public health measures, despite efforts by professionals to raise awareness and recognition of them. They represent an underestimated area of intangible services situated between goods (e.g., medications, medical devices) and general public health recommendations (e.g., dietary rules, hygiene measures, environmental actions).

They can be lost in compilations of health solutions that mix health promotion actions with targeted programs or confuse methods for identifying a health problem with methods for resolving it. The challenge is to improve the traceability of practices for continuous enhancement of their quality, safety, implementation, and training. These practices can be easily shared from one country to another. The term NPI does not imply "anti-medication" or "alternative medicine" (parallel medicine). Instead, it draws from the rigor of the globally standardized drug validation process to establish good scientific and clinical practices. Over time, we believe that the abbreviation NPI will come to be more widely recognized than its full title, similar to WHO, IBM, SEAT, and many others.

Registers of non-pharmacological practices with imprecise criteria and boundaries.
Catalogs compile various health practices among which NPI may be submerged. Some target the general population, while others are more specific. The selection criteria are heterogeneous, and objectives and practical modalities vary widely. Three examples include two from the United States (EBCCP and Mindtools) and one from France (Capitalisation Santé).

The term NPI has been used by scientists working in the health field since 1975. However, it is not the only term; other similar terms are used synonymously, especially in PubMed. There are ten English terms to describe non-pharmacological processes and twenty-eight to describe methods of operation. An exhaustive inventory of NPI on a scientific article search engine is currently impossible due to the variety of terms researchers use, each with distinct meanings: rehabilitation intervention, psychosocial intervention, mental intervention, cognitive intervention, psychological intervention, behavioral intervention, psychosomatic intervention, nutrition intervention, dietary intervention, food intervention, physical intervention, body intervention, exercise intervention, manual intervention, salutogenic intervention, natural intervention, self-help intervention, nursing intervention, therapy intervention, care intervention, disease management intervention, multimodal intervention...

A search on PubMed from August 15, 2024, indicates 55,689 articles citing the term "non-pharmacological" or its equivalent up to 2023. While these figures do not challenge the trend, they are likely underestimated due to the database's focus on health products rather than services, biological treatments over psychosocial ones, studies on North American populations, and journals published by North American organizations. This aligns with an official U.S. government site managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information and hosted by the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A search on PubMed from August 15, 2024, also reveals 11,642 articles citing the term "non-pharmacological intervention" or its equivalent up to 2023. Both curves demonstrate an increase since 2000, with a notable acceleration since 2010.

The French National Authority for Health has been encouraging the use of the term NPI in health since 2011.