<span name="style_bold">Background: </span>Oral anticoagulants require a strict pharmacovigilance; it is important to describe and analyze use of these drugs in order to draft guidelines, recommendations and warnings, and thus provide medical personnel with a tool for their adequate use. <span name="style_bold">Methods: </span>Inpatients that received oral anticoagulants were selected and the specific information for this analysis was collected. The guidelines of the American College of Chest Physicians, as well as those of the American and European professional associations of cardiology were used. <span name="style_bold">Results: </span>Information from 176 patients was collected. The specialists that prescribe these drugs are orthopedists (40%), internal medicine (14%), cardiologists (13%) and intensive care (11%), for the treatment of stroke thromboprophylaxis, postoperative thromboprophylaxis, treatment of pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis; 84% of the patients that used these drugs did so in approved prescriptions. Bleeding related to these drugs was reported in 3.4 % of the cases. <span name="style_bold">Conclusion: </span>Most prescriptions were administered according to the guidelines, despite this there is a clear inconsistency between tests ordered and their monitoring. Most bleeding reports were associated to warfarin, yet it remains the standard treatment for this kind of patients until reversion treatments for new oral anticoagulants and suitable methods for monitoring, when required, are approved.Most prescriptions were administered according to the guidelines, despite this there is a clear inconsistency between tests ordered and their monitoring. Most bleeding reports were associated to warfarin, yet it remains the standard treatment for this kind of patients until reversion treatments for new oral anticoagulants and suitable methods for monitoring, when required, are approved.

Oral anticoagulants; clinical pharmacy; thrombosis; pharmacovigilance