Analysis of pediatric prescriptions and associated factors to look for emergency hospital sector

Abstract

Objective: To identify the profile of pediatric drug prescriptions and the reasons for seeking the hospital emergency sector, attempting to examine prescribing indicators. Methods: A cross-sectional study applying interview script structured to parents or guardians of children under 12 years of age seen in the emergency sector of a hospital, between July and October 2013. Results: We collected information from 265 children and their guardians. Of the survey participants, 65.6% went directly to the emergency sector due to the constraints of working hours of health services and because of situations that required more complex tests. The most commonly cited complaints were related to respiratory disorders. Indicators of prescriptions issued in this service encompassed the lack of information, given that 21.7% of the prescriptions contained only the generic name, 31.5% indicated the drug concentrations, 65.0% the pharmaceutical formulation, and 69.9% the route of administration. In addition, only 34.9% of the medications were included in the national list of essential medicines. Of the prescriptions, 27.3% were drugs acting in the respiratory system, followed by anti-infective drugs (17.5%), and drugs acting in the musculoskeletal system (16.6%). Conclusions: Based on the analyzed criteria, the lack of detailed information in the prescriptions was relatively high, which may prevent patients from getting the prescribed medication or use it incorrectly, when purchased.