[Who prescribes? Origin and adequacy of long term prescriptions included in a computerized long term treatment programme at a health center].

OBJECTIVE

To quantify medications not prescribed at the primary level and their suitability for patients included in a programme of compliance and computerised control of long treatments at a Health Centre.

DESIGN

Descriptive study.

SETTING

Zumaia Health Centre (Guipúzcoa).

PATIENTS

The study sampled 75 patients out of a total of 397 in treatment.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The total number of drugs studied was 230, out of which 23% were prescribed by the General Practitioner and 77% referred from other care levels. Of these last, the bibliographical sources consulted advised against their use in chronic treatments in one out of every 5 cases, which depended on the pathology which was the cause of referral.

CONCLUSIONS

Much of the medication included in our long-treatment programme was prescribed at other care levels than our Health Centre. The elaboration of a list of medications excluded from long-treatment programmes should bear in mind the prescription's real origin in order to avoid negative consequences both for the user and the system. The computerisation of prescriptions could be extremely valuable both in the control of our programmes and the analysis of their attributable costs. We propose that the validity of the type of referred medications used for long-treatment patients should be studied as an indicator of a Health Centre's proper functioning.