[Design and piloting of a structured service medication dispensing process]

The aim of this article is to design and pilot a protocol for the dispensing of medications service.

Using the requirements proposed in the Ministry of Health Pharmaceutical Care Consensus, a literature search was made applying qualitative consensus techniques. An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted from March to June 2009.

A total of 53 community pharmacies from 24 Spanish counties.

Patients who requested one or more particular medications with or without medical prescription for their own use or for someone in their care.

The personalised medication information (IPM), the problems associated with the medications (PRM), and the negative results associated with the medication (RNM), detected by the pharmacist each time medication was dispensed, as well as the perception of the pharmacist on the operability of the protocol were recorded.

A total of 870 medications were dispensed, with 423 (48.6%) cases of lack of personalised medication information (IPM) being detected. PRM were detected in 10.11% of the dispensed medications, as well as 68 (7.81%) suspected RNM: safety (n = 35; 51.5%), effectiveness (n = 29; 42.6%) and necessity (n = 4; 5.8%). Almost two-thirds (65.21%) of the pharmacists said that the protocol is in operation.

The designed protocol helped to detect deficiencies in the information to the patients about their medications, as well as the PRM and RNM, and is shown to be tool that is easy to use and apply.