Assessment of knowledge and perceptions of generic medicines among pharmacy students in Yemeni universities
Keywords:
Generic Substitution, Generic Medicines, Bioequivalence, PerceptionsAbstract
Prescription of substitute generic medicines was encouraged by most policy makers in developed and developing countries across the world. Maintaining the confidence of patients in using generics is the main challenge, whichever policy - generic prescribing or generic substitution - is adopted. This is the place where the role of the pharmacist becomes crucial. The availability of different brands of the same drug at the equivalent strength and in the unchanged dosage form creates a special challenge to healthcare professionals, making these issues very relevant to pharmacists in all practice settings. Therefore, a cross-sectional survey was undertaken to evaluate pharmacy pre-registrants’ perceptions and knowledge of generic medicines. Data were collected through a standard pre-tested questionnaire. More than 70% of study participants from private universities thought that generic medicines are inferior, less effective and produce more side effects compared to brand name medicines. These findings highlight that private universities’ pharmacy pre-registrants require an enhanced understanding of the concepts and principles of bioavailability and bioequivalence of health system to prevent pre-registrants to contribute inappropriately to generic medicine use.
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