PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES FOR PATIENTS WITH HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AT COMMUNITY PHARMACIES IN THE PROVINCE OF CÓRDOBA (ARGENTINA)

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 76th World Congress of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences - 2016 International Congress of FIP; 2016

FIP (Federación Internacional Farmacéutica)

Backgrounds: Community pharmacies are often the first point of contact of the population with the health system.Purpose: To determine the prevalence of patients older than 18 not medicated for hypertension who have high blood pressure (BP) and/or hypertension at participating community pharmacies.To evaluate the result and the effect of pharmacist intervention on BP in people who have high BP values at the beginning of the study, as baseline.The pharmacist's role in detecting people at risk for hypertension to advise them to introduce changes in their lifestyle and make the referral to the doctor when necessary is essential.Methods: Observational and prospective epidemiological study. Patients 18 years older without medication for hypertension were included.BP values of patients were compared before and after pharmaceutical intervention. The effect was evaluated by checking whether BP values of patients had increased or decreased in one or more hypertension categories.Results: BP value data of a total of 687 patients were obtained in 36 community pharmacies. Only 58.2% of patients had adequate BP values and 27.1% of patients were in hypertension categories.Pharmaceutical intervention was performed in 281 patients with high BP values, and 223 returned to the pharmacies 8 weeks later. Asking them about the intervention, it was positive in 87.9% of cases, while 75.4% of those patients declined at least in one hypertension category.Conclusions: The possibility of joint work of physicians and pharmacists and their usefulness in early diagnosis of hypertension was shown, and the need of pharmacists to be involved in the development of health programs was demonstrated.