Antibacterials and self-medication at national level: integrative review

Abstract

Antimicrobials are natural or synthetic substances capable of eliminating or preventing the multiplication of bacteria. Inappropriate use has become a serious public health problem, leading to bacterial resistance. The causes range from incomplete completion of the treatment, error in the time of administration, the suggested dosage, even the use of the wrong drug for the clinical situation. The objective of this work was to carry out an integrative review on the self-medication of antibacterials at a national level,
demonstrating the impacts on health. The selected works were read in full, evaluating the relevance in the question addressed and the contribution in this theme. Data such as author, year, state, municipality, objective, methodology and results were extracted and organized in a table, thus visualizing the respective proposals addressed. The central idea of each article was synthesized and approached with adjacent works, contextualizing the information and enriching the discussion. Of the 195 articles, only 7 were selected according to the research protocol. The states involved in the work are Amazonas [4], Goiás [2] and Minas Gerais [1]. Therefore, the inappropriate use of antimicrobials without proper prescription contributes to the increase of resistant strains, requiring strong supervision in all distribution environments, especially in commercial pharmacies.