[Research on drug utilization in primary health care in national journals]

In order to discover the present state of research into the use of medication (UM) in primary care, articles published in the "Original Articles" sections of Medicina Clínica (MC) (Clinical Medicine) and Atención Primaria (AP) (Primary Care) between 1983 and 1990, were studied. A total of 130 articles that meet the definition of the WHO for studies into the use of Medications (SUM) were identified. The instigator and organiser of the research, the drugs included, the kind of study, the source of the data, the main variables used and the qualitative analysis made, were all studied. In conclusion we were able to point out that the characteristics of UM were met in the majority of the studies; although they are the main objective of the study in only a minority of cases. The people who undertook most of the research were those who themselves prescribed the drugs or dealt with very common pathologies. In general, the studies are only descriptive and have a poor level of assessment of the results.