Abstract

SEVA-IZQUIERDO, Inmaculada; FLORES-DORADO, Macarena  and  MARTINEZ-MARTINEZ, Fernando. SELF-MEDICATION BEFORE PHARMACEUTICAL PRESCRIBING IN FLU OR COLD. Vitae [online]. 2014, vol.21, n.1, pp.30-37. ISSN 0121-4004.

Background: Self- medication is an increasingly common practice in our society. However, it carries a risk that may be important to health. The pharmacist, by service of pharmaceutical indication, may play a key role as a counselor at self-medication. Objective: To describe the behavior of patients regarding self-medication, before and after receiving pharmaceutical counseling in cold or flu. Method: Descriptive study, through survey in a community pharmacy, including the patients who request medicine for flu, cold or related isolated symptoms during the period of study. All patients followed a protocol of pharmaceutical prescribing for flu and cold. The service consisted in dispensing a medicine and giving enough information about it, or deriving to the doctor. A week later, the same pharmacist made a second telephone interview to assess the actions taken by the patient and their satisfaction on the received service. Results: People who came into the pharmacy and requested a pharmaceutical counseling were mostly patients (72.5%). Health problems consulted were divided almost equally between flu and cold (50.2%), and from isolated related symptoms (49.8%). Almost 90% of patients had one or two symptoms. It was found that 40% of patients had previously taken medication for health problems consulted, before coming to the pharmacy. Besides, 67% of them took medication for one (44.1%) and two days (22.9%). The origin of this was the self-medication (85.6%) and was ineffective in 64.4% of the cases. The cause of ineffectiveness was “inappropriate medication” (56.5%). A week after providing pharmaceutical counseling, most of the patients (90.8%) answered a post-intervention survey. It revealed that only 2.6% self-medicated, and 7.7% of patients, who had received pharmaceutical counseling, finally self-derived to the physician. Patients, who took recommended medicine by pharmacist, did it for 3 or 4 days (43.9%). Satisfaction with the service of pharmaceutical counseling was 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 points for 89.5% of patients, and most of them (97.7%) said that they would go into the pharmacy again to request a new pharmaceutical counseling. Conclusion: Self-medication with drugs for flu or cold was quite common among the population, and was inappropriate in more than half of cases. Patients who followed the pharmacist recommendations had high satisfaction with the service of pharmaceutical counseling.

Keywords : Pharmaceutical Care; Pharmacies; Respiratory Tract Infections; Self Medication.

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