Inadequate drugs prescription: contributions of scientific paradigms to your knowledge

Abstract

This study conducted a narrative review with thematic analysis about contributions of scientific paradigms to knowledge of inadequate drugs prescription. We searched open access articles indexed in PubMed© between 2010 and 2014, and we systematized information about scientific paradigm, publication type, theoretical perspective, objective, method and results. From the 992 articles found, 118 were selected. From those, we chose a purposive sample of 15, according to the design of the studies, representing the four paradigms. The positivists articles reported prevalence, associated factors, effectiveness of interventions and evaluation criteria; the interpretive explained the causes of the problem according to those involved; the critics denounced the influence of pharmaceutical industry; and the participative addressed the problem secondarily and solved it in a scenario for a specific disease and pharmacological. We concluded that the inadequate drugs prescription as research problem in public health had contributions from the four paradigms, with dominance of positivism, which is attributed to the paradigmatic perspective of the science, from which it is usually studied, and that a multiparadigmatic perspective is the best approach to the public health issue.