Roni Cleber Bonizio

Pharmacoeconomy: an indispensable tool for the rationalization of health costs

Due to the considerable increase in public expenditure with health issues, mainly regarding drugs, several countries, including Australia and England, have already implemented, or are in the process of discussing the adoption of measures to ensure the quality of health care provided to the population. One of the less harmful strategies, rarely used in Brazil, is the adoption of economic techniques applied to health, more specifically, pharmacoeconomic analysis. This paper aims to contribute to the dissemination of concepts and techniques of economic analysis with a view to incorporate these into policy decisions of expenditure rationalization and the search for clinical efficiency. It includes a literature review covering the types of costs and benefits in health issues, the methodologies of pharmacoeconomic analysis, cost-minimization, cost-benefits, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analysis, as well as its main characteristics, advantages, disadvantages and applicability.

Asthma Self-Management Model: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Information for patients provided by the pharmacist is reflected in adhesion to treatment, clinical results and patient quality of life. The objective of this study was to assess an asthma self-management model for rational medicine use. This was a randomized controlled trial with 60 asthmatic patients assigned to attend five modules presented by a pharmacist (intervention group) and 59 patients in the control group. Data collection was performed before and after this 4-month intervention and included an evaluation of asthma knowledge, lifestyle, inhaler techniques, adhesion to treatment, pulmonary function and quality of life. An economic viability analysis was also performed. The intervention group obtained an increase in asthma knowledge scores of 58.3-79.5% (P < 0.001). In this group, there was also an increase in the number of individuals who practiced physical exercise (36-43%), in the number of correct replies regarding the use of inhalers, in the percentage of adherent patients, and in quality of life scores for all domains. We concluded that this asthma self-management model was effective in improving the quality of life of asthma patients.