Prevenção quaternária: revisão sistemática

Abstract

The interventions of health professionals, including preventive measures, can cause reversible and irreversible damage to patients. Therefore, quaternary prevention (P4, a series of actions which has the objective of identifying and acting on patients at risk of overuse of medications) aims to protect these individuals from unnecessary and iatrogenic actions. The objective of this systematic review was to identify the main aspects addressed on this topic, following the rules of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. A careful search was conducted in the Pubmed, SciencieDirect and Scielo databases in July 2020. There were 158 articles found, 21 included because they meet the inclusion criteria. Six main themes were identified, and each article included more than one theme: Concept (7), Overdiagnosis and overtreatment (5), Iatrogenesis (5), Ethics (3), Mental Health (2) and Abortion (2). This study identified the most relevant themes related to P4, the convergences and divergences between authors in their respective studies. Knowing that the field of health is still deficient in the implementation of P4, it is expected that the next generations of health professionals can know and stimulate deeper knowledge about this very relevant tonic, and thus be able to apply it.