Avaliação da resposta dos Centros de Informação de Medicamentos de Portugal perante um caso clínico de Seguimento Farmacoterapêutico

Abstract

Introduction: Within the practice of pharmacotherapy follow-up, there is a phase, called study phase, where we look for information about the patient�s medicines and health problems. To have this information, we must search the information sources existing in the pharmacy, and sometimes we have to ask information to the external sources, such as the Drug Information Centers (DICs). Objective: To evaluate the answers of the four Portuguese�s DIC, in respect to reliability, accessibility, completeness and clinical applicability. Method: The study-case was based upon a clinical case of pharmacotherapy follow-up. We asked five questions for each of the two medicines involved. Results: All the DICs have identified the information source from where they took the references. The answering break-time varied from 5 minutes (DIC B) to 73 hours (DIC A), although the former have had the lowest completeness level, because it gave very incomplete information for all the questions. All the four DICs sent support references, between 22 hours (DIC B) to 94 hours (DIC C). In respect to clinical applicability answer�s only DIC A achieved the level 3 (answer with clinical orientation). Conclusion: Although the four DICs give quality answers related to pharmacotherapy, they have difficulty to give answers with clinical applicability.