Armazenamento e descarte de medicamentos em domicílio no município de Cuité - PB.

Abstract

Because of the importance of drugs in society is common the formation of homemade pharmacy, which contributes to the risk of indiscriminate use. Medicines require appropriate storage conditions and an appropriate disposal in order to avoid problems for the health of the population. The study describes the storage conditions and disposal in households in the municipality of Cuité-PB. It was made an exploratory, analytical and cross-sectional study from March to May 2013 using a semi-structured questionnaire. Visited 256 families with an average of 3.5 residents per household, with a mean age of 54.5 years and an average of 0.6 children per household. It was observed that in households with a greater number of children storage is more appropriate and that people of low income and education tend to store worse. Of households, 75.8% had home pharmacy, with an average of 3.3 drugs / residence. One of the main drugs of storage places was inside the kitchen cabinet (26.36%) and 76.2% were within reach of children. 89.5% of the drugs were exposed to sunlight and 23% stored in dirty areas. The average relative humidity was 51.2% and the 30,5Cº temperature. The stored drugs, 2.4% were overdue, 1.1% had organoleptic changes, 38.4% were not in use, 0.3% were without primary packaging and 33.2% without the secondary. The pharmacological classes most commonly found in households were the action in the cardiovascular system (28.7%) and nervous system (21.7%). Disposal was held 53.62% in the trash without any care. All these results show the need to develop educational activities to help the population to promote a more adequate storage and disposal.