[Use of drugs in a sample of users in primary health care]

A study is made of the consumption of medicines in relation to the professionals who recommend them, and the degree of compliance in their ingestion, amongst the users of Primary Attention, by means of a method of case detection made on patients over the age of 25, who personally visited a General Medicine doctor between March and December, 1987. 703 interviews were carried out, with the result that 41% of the patients took medicines prescribed at that visit, with an average of 0.69 per person, and 0.45 medicines with chronic dosage. 7.3% used medicines prescribed by private doctors, and 2.2% prescribed by non-medical professionals. These results suggest a moderately high and chronic consumption which ought to be taken into account in the local planning of future educational programs, in order to improve the use of medicines in the community.