[A comparative study on drug utilization in primary care depending on the professionals and family consumers]

Information on pharmaceutical assistance in health care can be obtained from different sources: pharmacies, medical records, market studies, and family interviews. These allow to evaluate whether the consumed drugs were prescribed or directly purchased, if they are stored at home, and the relation between these facts and the familial characteristics. In the present study we have carried out a comparative analysis of data related to the use of drugs in the Salamanca Province depending of their source: the doctors or the families themselves. We distributed by post a questionnaire to the primary care physicians. We also interviewed a representative sample of the families of the Salamanca Province. We found that those drugs most commonly prescribed by doctors were also the most commonly reported as used by the families: drugs for cardiovascular disease, anti-inflammatory-antirheumatic drugs, and analgesics.