Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to assess the usefulness of a programme of attention to pharmaceutical prescriptions (APP) so as to detect medicine-related problems. DESIGN: A descriptive study of the findings after six months operation of this programme. SETTING: Five primary care centres in the Bahía-Cádiz Area. PATIENTS: All the patients (499) who requested advice on their drug therapy and were included at the request and on the criterion of their doctor were studied. INTERVENTION: We introduced the APP programme for chronic patients, with two basic aims: Care: to detect medicine-related problems and propose individual solutions. Teaching: to bring drug-therapy skills used in clinical practice into line with the scientific evidence available. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: We focused on the detection of problems related to the most common medicines, with direct and relevant incidence on morbidity and mortality. We detected 236 cases (47%) of possible therapeutic improvement that had important implications for associated morbidity, of which 114 (23%) also had implications for mortality. 56% of the patients took more than 4 medicines, multiple medication that could easily be reduced in 43.5% of cases, so avoiding the use of medicines of low intrinsic value. CONCLUSIONS: The programme was very useful, as numerous very clinically relevant problems were detected and information was gained that the doctor can use to bring drug therapy into line with the available scientific evidence.