OBJECTIVE: this study reports an association between Common Mental Disorders and the socio-demographic and pharmacotherapy profiles of 106 patients cared for by a Primary Health Care unit in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil. METHOD: this is a cross-sectional descriptive exploratory study with a quantitative approach. Structured interviews and validated instruments were used to collect data. The Statistical Package for Social Science was used for analysis. RESULTS: The prevalence of Common Mental Disorders was 50%. An association was found between Common Mental Disorders and the variables occupation, family income, number of prescribed medications and number of pills taken a day. Greater therapy non-adherence was observed among those who tested positive for Common Mental Disorders. CONCLUSION: this study's results show the importance of health professionals working in PHC to be able to detect needs of a psychological nature among their patients and to support the implementation of actions to prevent the worsening of Common Mental Disorders.

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The general aim of this study was to investigate the factors associated with Common Mental Disorders (CMD) and the use of psychotropic drugs in Basic Health Units (BHU), in Ribeirão Preto. This is an epidemiological cross-sectional and correlational study, with stratified proportional sampling plan. Each strata was formed by the largest BHU in the number of attendees in the coverage area of each of the five health districts in the entire city. The interview subjects included 430 individuals who had medical appointments scheduled in the BHUs. These elements were used as research instruments: economic, socio-demographic, and pharmacotherapeutic questionnaires; a self-reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20), to estimate the prevalence of CMDs; and a World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-Brief (WHOQOL-brief) to measure quality of life scores (QOL) in the sample. The dependent variables included CMD, the use of psychotropic drugs, and QOL. The explanatory variables involved socio-demographic, economic, and pharmacotherapeutic factors, as well as health history. While analyzing TMC and the use of psychotropics drugs as dependent variables, univariate (chi-square) analysis and a multivariate logistic regression were conducted. For the analysis of QOL, a Student t-test and a multiple linear regression were used. In associations in which p<0.05 were considered significant. The prevalence of CMDs was 41.4% and psychotropic drug was 25.8%. Predictors of CMD included the use of psychoactive drugs (OR = 3.88, 95% CI 2.34 to 6.41) and female gender (OR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.04 to 3.69). Information gathered by the Chi-square test indicated an association between being positive for TMC and the number of types of medications and the number of tablets per day (p<0.05.) Regarding the use of psychotropic drugs, the predictors were TMC (OR = 3.9; 95% CI 2.36 to 6.55), physical illness (OR = 5.4, 95% CI 2.84 to 10.2), and lower education (OR = 1, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.92). According to the Student t-test, patients with CMD had lower QOL scores than patients who were negative for TMC across all domains (p < 0.05). CMD was the major contributing factor in the linear regression model for lower QOL scores. The use of psychotropics negatively influenced the patterns of QOL, in the physical and psychological domains of WHOOQL-brief. The results of this study point to the need for strategies in primary health care (PHC) which seek to consider the individuals as a whole, since there was association between CMD, use of psychotropic drugs, and QOL with socio-demographic and economic variables. The results involving QOL allow for the assumption that, whether or not there was use of psychotropic drugs, individuals presented in distress.