SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF QUALITATIVE STUDIES QUANTO À FINAL DISPOSITION OF MEDICINES INSERVÍVEIS

Abstract

O present work as an objective to analyze studies that deal with discarding useless drugs (out of use or with expired validity data). For this, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, focusing on scientific articles published between the years of 2015 and 2020 in the databases of the Portal de Periódicos da CAPES, Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online), as well as searching in renowned newspapers in waste area (Waste Management). Foram used as key words (descriptors): “disposal of expired medicines” and “expired medicines disposal”. Foram found 156 articles, being that, after reading and applying two criteria of inclusion and exclusion, the universe was reduced to 21 publications. I verified that qualitative research is a viable method for the study of discarding useless drugs. It was possible to discover some two reasons why the discarding of drugs did not occur in an adequate way, in addition to enabling a comparison of the phenomenon in Brazil, in relation to other countries. All the studies analyzed show that, even in different states of Brazil or in different parts of the world, the scenario is similar. The useless medicines, in a general way, are discarded in an inappropriate way (as common household waste or in sanitation and garbage), mainly due to lack of consumer information on how to carry out this disposal in a correct manner.