Pharmaceutical care in primary care - beyond access to medication

Abstract

To describe patients and multidisciplinary teams demands for pharmaceutical care in a basic health unit. This is a descriptive and cross-sectional study which was conducted in a health unit of São Paulo, from January 2011 to July 2012. All referral patients to pharmaceutical care were accounted. Referrals were classified according to the source, the main rational and patients demand. A total of 1,164 patients were referred to pharmaceutical care, 88% of which were referred by pharmacy technicians. The most frequent reason (25.9%) was the request to participate in health education groups and rational use of medicines. Among them, 79.9% of patients were referred for noncompliance to treatment of chronic diseases. Health professionals demand the pharmacist assistance beyond the access to medication issues such as drug conciliation, non-adherence issues.

Keywords

• pharmaceutical care. primary health care. unified health system.