[The demand for drugs in a social security clinic]

The requests for drugs by the patients in an outpatient Social Security clinic was evaluated. It was found that these requests are the motive for 54.4% of consultations. About one half of these drugs (43%) was destined to elderly individuals, and in a great proportion of instances they were prescribed for persons who did not attend the clinic and whom the physician cannot examine. The most commonly requested and prescribed subgroup during the study period was "peripheral and cerebral vascular medications" (7.7% of the overall group). However, when the different pharmaceutic preparations were evaluated on the basis of their components, the most commonly prescribed on request were "vitamins". This reflects the high number of drug associations of these drugs that were prescribed. The types of drugs and their form of prescription cast doubts on the quality of this type of practice.