KNOWLEDGE AND USE OF GENERIC DRUGS IN FRESH DOCTORS AND NURSES

Reshma Ann Mathew; Dr. Princy Louis Palatty

Volume : VI, Issue : V, May - 2016

KNOWLEDGE AND USE OF GENERIC DRUGS IN FRESH DOCTORS AND NURSES

Reshma Ann Mathew, Dr. Princy Louis Palatty

Abstract :

OBJECTIVES: With new drugs being introduced into the market at a fast pace, it is a tendency that fresh doctors and nurses would go unaware of many important facts about generic drugs METHODS: It was a cross sectional descriptive study with 206 sample. We used a 16 item questionnaire which had 5 options to assess the perceptions of doctors, medicos, nurses and nursing students. RESULTS: Our study revealed that, ninety point one percent of doctors and 81.9% of nurses knew that some drugs were anded and others generic but only twenty five percent of doctors and 23.3% of nurses knew about their bioequivalence. Eighty eight point nine percent of doctors and 65% nurses believed that a cost difference existed between generic and anded drugs. Fifty four point four percent and 48.1% of doctors and nurses respectively believed that generics are as safe as their anded counterparts. Fifty three point four percent of doctors and 41.2% of nurses strongly believe that the general physicians get misguided by medical representatives about generics. CONCLUSIONS: Our survey ings to the fore, the dismal reception of generic drugs by health care professionals and health care professionals–in the making. This is attributed to the negative perceptions through prejudices, ignorance and unauthentic information sources.