Drug utilization studies in Brazilian hospital: a review

Recebido em 8/12/2006 Farmacêutica, Especialista em Farmácia Hospitalar/UFF Farmacêutica do Hospital Universitário da UNIRIO; 2Farmacêutica, Mestre em Saúde da Criança e da Mulher (IFF/FIOCRUZ), Especialista em Farmácia Hospitalar (UFF/UFF), Profa de Farmácia Hospitalar da UNESA; Farmacêutica Doutora em Saúde da Criança e da Mulher (IFF/FIOCRUZ), Mestre em Ciências Farmacêuticas (UFRJ); Pesquisadora/Núcleo de Assistência Farmacêutica, NAF/DCB – Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sérgio Arouca/Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. SUMMARY – Drug Utilization Studies are important instruments to promotion of rational drug use and in the management of health systems. This study identifies and analyzes Drug Utilization Studies carried out in Brazilian hospitals, by means a literature review, using Pubmed, Scielo and Lilacs databases. From the selected articles, the majority was conducted in public hospitals with qualitative or quantitative methodologies, the latter being the most common. More frequent were consumption and prescription studies and the most used sources of information were prescriptions, patient and pharmacy registers, interviews with patients and health professionals. Results indicate the need for more complex studies, such as intervention,, dispensing and adherence studies, problem treatments and problem-patient studies in order to produce tools in the clinical setting.