Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF POPULATION AWARENESS ABOUT USING THE LOCAL MEDICATIONS VERSUS THE BRAND MEDICATIONS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Amal Khaleel Ahmed Abu Alhomos* and Abdullah Saud Alosaimi

Abstract

Brand name medications dispensed when bioequivalent generic alternatives are available, resulting in an estimated $8.8 billion in excess expenditures per year in the United States. The primary goal is to measure the awareness of community about using local medication versus brand medication. The secondary goal is to measure the frequency and the factors preferring one alternative. A web-based questionnaire designed to assess attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and experiences with generic medications. The web-based questionnaire was distributed to communication web sites and different university web sites to reach the 608 patients. The assessment was performed for the most common six branded medications used in community pharmacies with related generic alternatives. We used data from a large, nationally representative sample of outpatients to evaluate how frequently brand and generic name equivalents used in clinical practice. The 63% of the total patients preferred the brand medication, while 37% preferred the local medication and the reasons for their preference for the brand medication are 41% (n = 207). Those who prefer to choose the local medication had stated the four reasons, its low price 22% (n = 76) and thought that had the same efficacy of the original medication 25% (n = 87), and others did not know their reason for preferring 44% (n = 156), and other causes 9% (n = 32). Attitudes toward generic alternative related to prescribing behaviors, beliefs about and experience with generic alternative, and comfort with alternative.

Keywords: Awareness, community, local and brand medication.