Collaborative attitudes between pharmacists and physicians in Brazil

Abstract Pharmacist-physician collaboration is a strategy for optimizing patient care and improving health outcomes. Nevertheless, there is a lack of information in Brazil about collaborative practices among these professionals. The aim of this study was to measure collaborative attitude of pharmacists and physicians who were working together in a teaching hospital. A cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2018 to January 2019 with pharmacists and physicians working in a teaching hospital in Northeastern Brazil. These professionals were invited to provide responses to the Brazilian version of the "Scale of Attitudes Towards Pharmacist-Physician Collaboration" (SATP2C); their scores ranged between 16 and 64 points. The software Epi Info TM (version 3.5.4) was used for data analysis, and data were expressed in means. Forty-four professionals participated in this study. The mean age was 33.5 (DP = 7.1) years. More than half of participants were male (n = 25, 56.8%). The means from the SATP2C for pharmacists and physicians were 54.20 and 50.91, respectively, indicating good collaborative attitudes. There was no statistical difference between the mean scores of pharmacists and physicians. Participants showed a predisposition for collaborative teamwork. Future studies should focus on understanding the process by which collaboration translates into clinical practice

Herbal medicines from the industry in the unified health system: challenge faced by medical professionals

Abstract The World Health Organization recognized the use of herbal medicines as a therapeutic resource and its application in the primary attention to heath. The begin of this expansion was in 2006, with the National Policy on Integrative and Complementary practices of the Unified Health System (SUS). This research aimed to evaluate the questionnaires applied to doctors, who may have prescribed industrialized herbal medicines and to identify the difficulties involved with the implementation of this therapy as an integrative and complementary practice. It is a quantitative, observational and transversal study conducted in the municipality of Pinhais/Brazil. The questionnaire applied had as themes the experience of personal use of industrialized herbal medicines, improvement after their use. Forty-four individuals from four different nationalities: Brazilian (88.64%), Cuban (6.82%), Mexican (2.27%) and Argentinian (2.27%), ages between 25 and 69 years, mainly male sex (54.55%) answered the questionnaire. According to the study, the doctors consider herbal medicines an alternative to the conventional treatment and these medical professionals have already prescribed some industrialized herbal medications. Despite the difficulties faced by medical doctors with the prescription of herbs, it is possible to define strategies to assist these professionals, such as the incentive the actions by the governments.

Incidence of Medication Errors in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of medication errors over a period of one year in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia. This retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of one year from 2018 January to 2018 December using patient's records. King Fahad Hospital in Madina was selected for the study center. Data collected include the number and types of errors, severity, location of errors, errors by profession, and errors occurred in the medical wards. Statistical analysis was carried out using statistical package for social science version22. A total of twenty- six hundred and fifty-eight medication errors were reported during the study period. Among the reports 2567(96.5%) of the errors were due to near misses, followed by transcribing errors 1597(60%), ordering errors 928(34.9%), duplicative therapy 765(28.7%), wrong dose 454(%). The most common procedures involve medication errors were wrong documentation 442(16.6%), duration 168(6.3%) wrong quantity 162(6.4%). Majority of the medication errors were contributed by physicians (99.2%) and 0.7% of them were due to the pharmacist. In conclusion study findings reported that yet some kind of medication errors has been under reported and it was common in most hospital, further studies with intervention programs needed to control the incidence of medication errors in a Saudi hospital

Alteraciones del ciclo menstrual en internas y residentes / Menstrual cycle charges in interns and residents

Determinar la incidencia de trastornos menstruales en internas y residentes asistenciales y de posgrado. Se entrevistaron las médicas utilizando un cuestionario elaborado para tal efecto. Hospital de la ciudad de Maracaibo tipo 3 y 2. Se analizaron 207 cuestionarios (87,7 por ciento) de 236 entrevistas: 172 (83,1 por ciento) residentes y 41 (16,9 por ciento) internas. Cincuenta y seis casos (27,15 por ciento) presentaron trastornos menstruales. La alteración del ciclo menstrual más frecuente fue el acortamiento de los mismos. El hospital, tipo de especialidad y año de residencia no tuvieron influencia. Las causas psíquicas fueron las que ocasionaron mayor número de alteraciones menstruales (84,5 por ciento) y al ser comparadas con causas de otro origen (15,5 por ciento) se encontró diferencia estadísticamente significativa (p=0,003). Las guardias fueron referidas como la causa más frecuente de irregularidad del ciclo (22,7 por ciento). Las médicas representan un grupo poblacional de alto riesgo a presentar alteraciones en el ciclo menstrual por su exposición a estrés psíquico

El médico de familia y los otros especialistas / The family physician and the other specialist

Los altos costos y la tecnología de la medicina especializada la hacen casi inalcanzable para las grandes masas, que sólo acceden a ella en un marco de asistencia pública. La variación de la demanda requiere de servicios organizados por tres niveles de atención: el primero como la puerta de entrada al sistema; el segundo conformado por las cuatro grandes ramas de la práctica médica y el tercero constituido por los superespecialistas que atienden problemas muy complejos que requiren de alta tecnología y costos muy elevados. La complejidad del problema plantea como una de las soluciones, la formación adecuada de médicos de primer contacto estructurándose para ello la Medicina de Familia como especialidad integrada al sistema de salud para atender la totalidad de las necesidades de acuerdo con su competencia particular y referir cuando se requiera conservando la responsabilidad del cuidado continuo integral en el contexto familiar y comunitario. El Médico de Familia y los otros especialistas no se contraponen, sino se complementan, al tener esferas de influencias interrelacionadas pero independientes y cada vez mejor definidas. El pleno ejercicio de la Medicina de Familia será posible cuando se constituya un sistema nacional de salud con políticas bien definidas que den impulso al desarrollo de esta especialidad