Availability of basic component medicines recommended in the PCDT in municipal lists of essential medicines

The integrality of care is one of the core principles of the National Policy of Pharmaceutical Assistance (Política Nacional de Assistência Farmacêutica - PNAF) and underpins two tools that guide the use of medicines: clinical protocols and therapeutic guidelines (protocolos clínicos e diretrizes terapêuticas - PCDT) and the lists of essential medicines. municipalities are encouraged to use these for healthcare management, but the development of municipal lists (relações municipais de medicamentos essenciais - Remume) presents weak points. The aim is to describe potential impacts on the implementation of PCDT from the perspective of the unavailability of medicines from the Basic Component of Pharmaceutical Assistance (Componente Básico da Assistência Farmacêutica - CBAF) in Remume. The CBAF medicines included in the PCDT until June 2023 were extracted. Forty-eight municipalities were selected for the Remume search and verification of the medicines of interest. Each PCDT was analyzed according to the lack of the least found medicines. The Remume contained, on average, 60% (44-75%) of the listed medicines, and the average coverage of each PCDT ranged from 2% to 100%. Of 62, 11 PCDT were impacted by the low availability of medicines. A lack of coverage of CBAF medicines in Remume was identified, which may challenge the implementation of PCDT.