[A long-term pharmacoepidemiological study on drug dispensing by the pharmacy office in rural primary care. The influence of age and sex].

OBJECTIVES

To obtain data on the use of medicaments dispensed through pharmacies in primary rural care.

DESIGN

Long-term descriptive observational study.

SETTING

Nivar and Güevejar municipalities, Sanitary Health District in north Granada (Spain). There were 2.7% losses.

PATIENTS

A randomised sample of 589 inhabitants, 18 years o more, included in the census of two villages.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The number of visits to the pharmacy, number of medicaments dispensed, prescribing physician and adverse effects to medicaments were recorded and compared between age groups, and between men and women. Prescriptions accounted for 75% of all medicaments, and 67.4% of the prescriptions were written by the primary care physician. Greater numbers of prescriptions were written for elderly persons and women than for younger person and men. Adverse reactions occurred in 3.3% of all subjects. Most reactions were mild (93.6%), and the greatest number of reactions were caused by nonsteroid antiinflammatory agents.

CONCLUSIONS

Age and female sex influence the consumption of medicaments. Long-term studies of dispensation patterns in pharmacies can represent a useful method.