[Drug prescription in primary care. Pharmacoepidemiologic study in the Albacete area]

Prescribing medication is a clinical procedure used quite often in Primary Care (PC). The quality of some prescriptions in the province of Albacete is studied, evaluating the characteristics of the PC physicians. The bottles of Cephalosporins, broad-spectrum Penicillins, Rawolfias, Diuretics, Beta-Blockers and Cerebral Blood Vessel Dilating Medications have been analyzed. Respectively, 38.4%, 30.8% and 28.5% of the physicians prescribed antibiotics, antihypertensives and blood vessel dilating medications acceptably. The logistic regression analysis only reveals a slight indication of: a better prescribing of antibiotics (p less than 0.02) at an older age, when employed in an urban environment and having a smaller number of patients to care for; and a better prescribing of cerebral blood vessel dilating medications (p less than 0.05) for specialists by way of MIR. The commercial information on medications could standardize behaviour with regard to writing prescriptions. To improve quality, it would be necessary to improve the scientific attitude of health care professionals.