Ways to optimize the pharmaceutical care of patients with headache

Abstract

Purpose. Analysis of the completeness of pharmaceutical care by pharmacists of visitors to pharmacies seeking medicines for headaches. Materials and methods. A questionnaire of 64 pharmacy pharmacists found out the frequency of treatment for headaches, the spectrum of their purchase on their own and on the recommendation of the pharmacist, the presence of “threatening symptoms”, as well as aspects of informing the patient (duration of treatment, possible side effects, factors for the occurrence of headaches, etc.). Results. Headache was the cause of circulation of 60.9% of visitors among all types of pain (joints, muscle pain, etc.). Most often, combined medications were purchased independently and on the recommendation of a pharmacist (53.1% and 54.7% of cases, respectively), and only 37.5% were recommended to paracetamol to visitors. In 95.7% of cases, respondents were wary of possible drug interactions, but 34.8% of them did not mention possible side effects of the medications. At the same time, 48.9% of respondents, unfortunately, did not take into account the level of blood pressure and did not associate it with a headache. Conclusions. Information when dispensing medications for the indicated positions was provided in sufficient quantities in the range from 39.1 to 78.3%. The lowest position was in identifying “threatening symptoms” (39.1%) and in informing patients about interactions with other medications (36%). The frequency of providing information on other positions was a little over 50%. Which cannot be considered as a satisfactory level for pharmaceutical care, since it determines the low safety profile of this approach to medicinal therapy.