Abstract

A STUDY ON THE PRICE VARIABILITY AMONG THE ORAL ANTIBIOTICS AVAILABLE IN A WESTERN REGION HOSPITAL- A CONTEXT OF NEPAL

Nisha Panth*, Keshav Raj Paudel, Bindu Chaudhary, Krishna Kumari Thapa

ABSTRACT

Objective: The objective of the research was to obtain the picture of price variability among the different oral antibiotic drugs in hospital pharmacy and their economic impact on patients. Methods: Computer data base were used to study the prices and the units of oral antibiotics sold in pharmacy department of western Nepal hospital. Many brands of generic group were studied to calculate the percentage price variation. Brands were classified into high cost, cheap and mid range products. Impact of number of brands on percentage price variation was calculated. The cost burden by the patient if costliest and the cheapest brands were prescribed for managing clinical condition was calculated. Results: Percentage price variability of 30 brands was 0 - 25% and for 24 brands it was 25.1 -50%. For 15 brands percentage price variability was more than 100%. Costliest brands were preferentially prescribed over the cheaper alternatives. The percentage price variation (range) increases as the number of brands increased for any drug Conclusion: It was seen that percentage price variation was higher among some drugs and this percentage price variation might result in bigger difference in cost of management of infections, if costlier brands were prescribed. It was also observed that costlier brands were preferred more and there is a need to formulate policy at the Hospital level to address these issues.

Keywords: Antibiotics, Brands, Price variation, Hospital pharmacy.