It is estimated that around five to 10.0% of hospital admissions occur due to clinical conditions resulting from pharmacotherapy. Clinical pharmacist's activity can enhance drug therapy's effectiveness and safety through pharmacotherapy interventions (PIs), thus minimizing drug-related problems (DRPs) and optimizing the allocation of financial resources associated with health care. This study aimed to estimate the DRPs prevalence, evaluate PI which were performed by clinical pharmacists in the Neurology Unit of a Brazilian tertiary teaching hospital and to identify factors associated with the occurrence of PI-related DRP. A single-arm trial included adults admitted in the referred Unit from 2012 July to 2015 June. Patients were evaluated during their hospitalization period and PIs were performed based on trigger DRPs that were detected in medication reconciliation (admission or discharge) or during inpatient follow-up. Student's t-test, Chi-square test, Pearson and Multiple logistic regression models to analise the association among age, number of drugs, hospitalization period, and number of diagnoses with occurrence of DRPs. Analyses level of significance was 5%. In total 409 inpatients were followed up [51.1% male, mean age of 49.1 (SD 16.5)]. Patients received, on average, 11.9 (SD 5.8) drugs, ranging from two to 38 drugs per patient, and 54.3% of the sample presented at least one DRP whose most frequent description was "untreated condition". From all 516 performed PIs that resulted from DRPs, 82.8% were accepted and the majority referred to "drug introduction" (27.5%). Multiple logistic regression showed that age, length of hospital stay, number of drugs used, diagnosis of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis would be clinical variables associated with DRP (p < 0,05). Monitoring the use of drugs allowed the clinical pharmacist to detect DRPs and to suggest interventions that promote rational pharmacotherapy.

This study aimed to characterize the profile of medication consumption by low risk pregnant women and to correlate it with sociodemographic characteristics of this population. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in the Reference Center of Women's Health in the Brazilian municipality of Ribeirão Preto. This study included women which were at least in the 32nd week of the gestation period. Data related to sociodemographic characteristics of the pregnant women and to their pregnancy and medication consumption were collected from June, 2008 to November, 2008. A total of 699 pregnant women were included. About 20% of the pregnant women began prenatal care in the 12th week of gestation and 75.3% had at least six antenatal visits. The use of at least one drug during pregnancy was reported by 98% of the participants. The mean number of medications used was 4.35. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) risk classification, 14.07% of the medication belonged to C category, 1.85% to D and 0.03% to X, and 38.30% were not identified or not classified by the FDA. When correlating the number of prenatal visits with the amount of medication used, it was verified that pregnant women who underwent less than six visits during pregnancy used a higher number of medications. Pregnant women have been exposed to a variety of medications and there is a need to improve the quality of care in order to prevent potential risks to the fetus, especially in relation to the use of medications.

No abstract

No abstract