Evaluation of a pharmaceutical care service in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) focusing on the process and clinical results

Abstract

This work describes the evaluation of a Pharmaceutical Care (PC) service in Belo Horizonte. It is an observational, longitudinal, non concurrent study, addressed to patients attended at the School Pharmacy of the Newton Paiva University Center, between 2001 and 2003. For every patient it was calculated a result index from the PC service and the service was classified as satisfactory or unsatisfactory; 97 patients were evaluated and 516 uncontrolled problems were identified; out of which 299 (57.9 %) were DRPs. It was possible to evaluate the clinical results in 214 (41.5 %) of the problems and 128 of the DRPs (42.8 %). By means of the evaluated results, the service was classified as satisfactory, achieving about 70 % of solvability. It was concluded that the PC implantation has contributed for the obtainment of positive clinical results. However, the analysis of data has demonstrated also some difficulties to evaluate the clinical results within health services.