Percepção das pessoas com diabetes Mellitus sobre o cuidado farmacêutico na atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder characterized by persistent hyperglycemia, deficiency in insulin production or its action, or in both mechanisms. This study aims to describe the perceptions of the person with diabetes about pharmaceutical care, in which it is assisted in the pharmaceutical service in a primary health care unit. This is an exploratory study, with a qualitative approach with the use of collection techniques, observation and interview with those of the person with diabetes followed in a primary health care unit in the city of Fortaleza-Ceará, held from September to November 2022. The analytical categories seized were: pharmaceutical service (physical space, infrastructure, accessibility, flow of care, service to people and human and technical resources) and; perceptions of people with diabetes (disease itinerary, care, activities developed by the pharmacist, importance of the pharmacist's activities, facilities and difficulties encountered in this service). Five people with diabetes were selected to participate in the study, in which the main results were obtained: all of them recognized the great importance of the pharmacist's work. As for the activities carried out by the pharmacist, these persons were mentioned activities to teach about glycemic selfmonitoring and the completion of maps, the provision of information, the act of calling the user of the service to go get their inputs and the action of checking the exams. Regarding the perceived facilities, the main one was the fact that there is infrastructure, materials and items favorable to the performance of the activities and pharmacists have interpersonal and communication skills. For the difficulties, the lack of encouragement of other professionals for more people to seek the pharmaceutical care service was mentioned, so that there is no integrated work among professionals and another difficulty concerns access to the unit, which makes continuous monitoring difficult in the service. With regard to the users' perception of difficulties encountered in the primary health care unit, the main reason was the lack of medical professionals in insufficient numbers to meet the demand, with no mention of difficulties related to the pharmaceutical service. Given this, it can be concluded that people with diabetes assisted in the pharmaceutical service clearly perceive the activities of the pharmacist and value the importance of this professional's work to help promote their health.