Nature of dispensations during the weekend guardservice of pharmacies in the city of Teruel

Introduction: The work that pharmacists and other healthcare professionals during the on-call service shades an importance that ensures accessibility to the drug, health advice, pharmacotherapeutic monitoring and profesional support to patients; out of regular hours.

Objectives: Know the nature of the population in the guardservice of the pharmacies in the city of Teruel during the weekends. 

Methodology: Cross-sectional observational study conducted in three community pharmacies in the city of Teruel. 

The first period analyzed ranges from April to June 2019 and the second in March 2020, during the four weekends that the pharmacies studies were on call.

Results: Of the 4245 weekend dispensations analyzed in 2019: 1059 (26.4%)were prescription drugs performed by emergency medical services,  965 (21.8%) of chronically prescribed drugs, 655 (15.2%) did not have a prescription of any kind but were considered necessary, 1067 (25.8%) had no prescription and were  not considered necessary and 499 (10,80%) were non-orthodox dispensations.

Conclusions: The pattern of dispensing during pharmacy guards is constant, independently of whether the weekend is ordinary, special situation (Easter) or an Alarm Situation (“COVID”). The pharmaceutical emergency service is not being used well by the population, the percentage of pharmaceutical actions that originate from a medical emergency is very low.