Analysis of access to hypertensive and diabetic drugs in the Family Health Strategy, State of Pernambuco, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Barreto,Maria Nelly Sobreira de Carvalho
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Cesse,Eduarda Ângela Pessoa, Lima,Rodrigo Fonseca, Marinho,Michelly Geórgia da Silva, Specht,Yuri da Silva, Carvalho,Eduardo Maia Freese de, Fontbonne,Annick
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista brasileira de epidemiologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-790X2015000200413
• topic: Unified Health System; Primary Health Care; Health Services Accessibility; Diabetes Mellitus; Hypertension; Drug Utilization

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the access to drugs for hypertension and diabetes and the direct cost of buying them among users of the Family Health Strategy (FHS) in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. METHODS: Population-based, cross-sectional study of a systematic random sample of 785 patients with hypertension and 823 patients with diabetes mellitus who were registered in 208 randomly selected FHS teams in 35 municipalities of the state of Pernambuco. The selected municipalities were classified into three levels with probability proportional to municipality size (LS, large-sized; MS, medium-sized; SS, small-sized). To verify differences between the cities, we used the χ2 test. RESULTS: Pharmacological treatment was used by 91.2% patients with hypertension whereas 85.6% patients with diabetes mellitus used oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs), and 15.4% used insulin. The FHS team itself provided antihypertensive medications to 69.0% patients with hypertension, OADs to 75.0% patients with diabetes mellitus, and insulin treatment to 65.4%. The 36.9% patients with hypertension and 29.8% with diabetes mellitus that had to buy all or part of their medications reported median monthly cost of R$ 18.30, R$ 14.00, and R$ 27.61 for antihypertensive drugs, OADs, and insulin, respectively. CONCLUSION: It is necessary to increase efforts to ensure access to these drugs in the primary health care network.