Abstract

KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTION, AND ATTITUDE OF GENERAL PUBLIC AND HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS TOWARDS THE USE OF GENERIC AND BRANDED DRUGS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY

Ananth Kashyap, Gopal Krishna and Basavanna P. L.*

ABSTRACT

Government of India is prioritising prescribing generic drug and opening many generic drug outlets to reduce out of pocket expenses. We conducted this cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey in the tertiary care hospital which includes patients (public), healthcare professionals to assess knowledge, perception, and attitude of general public and healthcare professionals towards the use of Generic and Branded drugs. The survey questionnaire was prepared in vernacular language and data was collected to the expected sample size and was analysed using MS Excel to calculate the response. A total of 200 patients and 200 healthcare participants were included in the study. Among patients more than 60% of them were not having knowledge on generic drug, branded drugs patent protection, generic drug advantages in the terms of cost, and manufacturing process and 53% believed generic is safe and effective as branded drugs. less than 45% of patients demand healthcare professionals for cheaper drug prescription, switch, substitution. Among healthcare participants more than 85% of practicing physician and pharmacist were knowledgeable and students gave a mixed response. More than 65% of them professionals and students supported the practice of prescribing the generic drug. In this study, we found that knowledge, awareness of the generics drug among patients is low and along with the government initiatives like Jan Aushadhi kendras to ease the availability of generics, health care professionals especially physicians, pharmacists and should make time to educate each patient on drug.

Keywords: Generic drugs, Branded drugs, Awareness.