Generic medicines: knowledge, perceptions and practice of community pharmacists, physicians and medicine consumers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| dc.contributor.author | Alrasheedy, Alian Aaly F | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2015-05-27T08:37:42Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2015-05-27T08:37:42Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2014-09 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Generic medicines are essentially the same as their counterpart brand medicines. They provide the same therapeutic outcomes, but at a much cheaper price. Therefore, they are promoted in many countries to confront the problem of escalating pharmaceutical expenditures. In Saudi Arabia, the use of generic medicines is currently low. Therefore, to promote generic medicines, the roles of physicians, community pharmacists and medicine consumers are essential. Hence, this research project aimed to study their knowledge, perceptions and practice regarding the use of generic medicines. In the first part of the thesis, three qualitative studies were conducted, using face-to-face individual semi-structured interviews. The first qualitative study was conducted with 20 community pharmacists. The study findings showed that proactive generic substitution is currently not a common practice in community pharmacies. Moreover, different factors related to community pharmacists, physicians and patients hindered the generic substitution practice. The second qualitative study was conducted with 18 physicians. The study findings showed that generic (international nonproprietary name) prescribing is currently not a common practice but rather product-specific prescribing is the practice model. Moreover, different factors influenced the physicians’ choice of the brands of medicines, including factors related to the physician, factors related to the drug product and its manufacturer/drug company, factors related to the patient, and factors related to pharmaceutical marketing. The third qualitative study was conducted with 15 medicine consumers. The study findings showed that medicine consumers generally preferred the use of brand medicines over generic medicines. Moreover, many consumers have negative perceptions and misconceptions about generic medicine. More importantly, recommendations (i.e. prescribing and dispensing) by physicians and pharmacists were the main factors influencing the use and acceptance of generic medicines by patients. In the second part of the thesis, two quantitative cross-sectional questionnaire-based studies were conducted. One study was conducted with 251 physicians practising in polyclinics (response rate = 59.3%). In this study, 128 (51%) stated that they prescribe both generic medicines and original brand medicines at approximately the same ratio, 76 (30.3%) stated that they prescribe more original brand medicines and 46 (18.3%) stated that they prescribe more generic medicines. Similarly, another study was conducted with 381 community pharmacists (response rate = 90.1%). In this study, almost all participants (379; 99.5%) stated that they dispense brand medicine in the prescription as written by prescribers without offering generic substitution in most situations. Regarding the main dispensing practice for OTC medicines, 153 (40.2%) stated that they offer generic medicines to consumers, 124 (32.5%) participants offer brand medicines, 101 (26.5%) participants offer both – sometimes they offer generic medicines and sometimes brand medicines – and only three participants (0.8%) stated that they offer both original brand and generic medicines and left the choice to the consumer. The quantitative studies showed that a considerable proportion of physicians and community pharmacists have misconceptions and negative perceptions of generic medicines. In conclusion, to increase utilization of generic medicines, it needs to be promoted in a holistic approach by considering the perspectives of all stakeholders, including physicians, community pharmacists and medicine consumers. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/783 | |
| dc.subject | Generic Medicines | en_US |
| dc.subject | Pharmacists | en_US |
| dc.subject | Physicians | |
| dc.subject | Medicine Consumers | |
| dc.title | Generic medicines: knowledge, perceptions and practice of community pharmacists, physicians and medicine consumers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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