PHARMACY PROFESSIONALS KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND PRACTICE ON GENERIC MEDICINE AT TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS

Abstract

Health care expenses are booming now a day. India is one of the biggest generic medicine manufacturers all over the world. Less knowledge of generic medicine correlates to less prescribing and dispensing of generic medicine. As a pharmacist play an important role in providing a safe and effective medicine to the patient, so they required great knowledge and attitude towards generic medicine. The main objective is to assess the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of generic medicine among pharmacists in Tertiary Care Hospital, Nashik. This is an observational, cross-sectional, KAP questionnaire-based study carried among 130 pharmacy professionals. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. More than half of the total number of participants (n = 130) had answered general knowledge questions about generic medicines correctly. Attitude study among pharmacy professionals showed that most of them had great knowledge about safety, efficacy but they were neutral attitudes viz and they didn't have perfect idea and were not sure about the manufacturing standards of generic medicines. Most of the pharmacists dispense an innovator drug over generic medicine available (53.84%). The maximum number of pharmacists had never read articles that compared the safety and efficacy of generic versus innovator medicines (61.53%). Our study shows that pharmacists had good knowledge and a positive attitude towards generic medicine but the practice was comparatively poor.