Factors related to missing and rescheduling pharmaceutical care appointments by aged outpatients in a Brazilian public health setting

Objectives: To uncover reasons why patients missed pharmaceutical care (PC) appointments, identify predictive factors to miss at least one appointment and to reschedule after a miss, and compare the rescheduling behavior of patients receiving different types of PC. Methods: All elderly patients who had at least one scheduled appointment in the PC service of a health setting of São Paulo city, Brazil, from January to December/2011 were included. Chi-square analysis compared categorical data between groups; multivariate logistic regression models predicted attendance and rescheduling behavior. Results: We identified 421 patients, being 221 (52.5%) non-attenders. Forgetting the appointment was the most common patient-related reason (56.3%). Illiteracy was a risk factor to be a non-attender [OR(95%CI)=2.27(1.17:4.40), p=0.015]. Patients having previous knowledge of the pharmacist presented more chance to rescheduled an appointment after the first miss compared to those who had not [OR(95%CI)=3.57(1.90:6.71), p