Study of prescription indicators in high-risk People from a reference service

Abstract

Background: The thalidomide disaster has raised concerns about the safety of drugs used during the gestational period. Accumulated knowledge enabled to classify the drugs into categories of risk for use in pregnancy, guiding the prescriber about which drugs are indicated and, especially, not prescribed during pregnancy. Objective: To investigate the prescription indicators described by the World Health Organization (WHO) in high-risk pregnant women treated at the Policlínica Francisco Carlos Cavalcante Roque in the municipality of Quixadá-CE. Methods: It is an observational, cross-sectional study consisting of a predominantly quantitative approach. Results: Prescriptions of 80 pregnant women were analyzed. The predominant diseases were infection (22%) (urinary, vaginal and intestinal) and hypertension (18%) and the third trimester of pregnancy was the most reported period with 43%. It was observed 99 drugs in prescriptions with more than one medicine, and the most prescribed were Methyldopa (20%), Ferrous Sulfate (11%) and Cephalexin (8%). In the classification in risk categories, there was a predominance of 44.4% in Category B. In the analysis of the prescription indicators, we found the average of 1.3 prescription medications, 70% of drugs prescribed by generic name, 5.05% with at least one injectable drug, 13.1% of them containing antibiotics and 76.7% % of prescription drugs based on the list of essential medicines in the municipality. Only 51.25% of the pregnant considered the prescriptions legible. Conclusions: Therefore, it is suggested that prescriptions of medications for pregnant women be better evaluated, considering cost-benefit and promoting patient safety.