Use of World Health Organization Indicators to Assess Pharmaceutical Assistance in Primary Health Care: An Integrative Review

Objective: Synthesize evidence related to the use of World Health Organization indicators to assess Pharmaceutical Assistance in Primary Health Care. Methods: The integrative review type research was carried out from 2008 to 2018. The Web of Science, Scopus, LILACS, MEDLINE via PubMed, Virtual Scielo Library, Virtual Health Library databases were used, using the keywords “ Pharmaceutical Assistance “,” Primary Health Care “and” World Health Organization Indicators “in Portuguese, Spanish and English. Results: 1,102 publications were identified. 21 publications were selected that met the inclusion criteria. The most used indicators were those of prescription, present in 20 publications (95.2%), followed by assistance indicators, in eight (38.1%), indicators on the service, in seven (33.3%).The research design was prospective in three (14%) publications, retrospective in eight (38%), retrospective / prospective in one (5%) and the design was not cited in nine (43%). All studies were above the recommended value (<2) for the number of drugs prescribed per prescription and the percentage of drugs prescribed by the generic name, which must be 100% according to the recommended by the World Health Organization. Conclusion: It was observed that the group of indicators of rational use of medicines was the most used, overlapping the other indicators of the World Health Organization (access and quality), applied for monitoring and evaluation in the pharmaceutical sector. In general, the indicators used in the studies included in the review did not show satisfactory results in comparison with the values established by the World Health Organization.