Impact of clinical pharmacy as a theme in Brazilian academic production: A retrospective of the years 2001 to 2021

Abstract

Clinical Pharmacy (CP) encompasses pharmaceutical practices aimed at optimizing pharmacotherapy, seeking better clinical outcomes, minimizing risks and costs associated with its use, and promoting rational drug use. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the national influence and evolution of academic studies on CP, outlining the national landscape on the subject between 2001 and 2021, using the Brazilian Portal of Open Access Scientific Publications (Ibict-Oasisbr) and the Lattes Platform managed by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) as search and data collection tools. In total, 117 academic productions were found, with CP as the subject of their investigations, and these productions were divided among 38 institutions distributed throughout the national territory. The Southern region accounted for 28.20% of the productions in the analyzed period, followed by the Southeast with 26.50%, the Northeast with 18.8%, the Midwest with 8.55%, and the North with 5.98%, which is consistent with the current distribution of researchers and research groups in the country and with the historical socioeconomic differences among the different regions of Brazil. Based on the above, the CP theme has been worked on the sidelines of other guiding research topics in the health field, such as Pharmaceutical Care, Pharmaceutical Assistance, and Hospital Pharmacy. Additionally, there was an inequality in the number of studies conducted in different regions of the country, indicating the need for further and more comprehensive investigations to better understand and characterize these findings.