Patients’ generic reluctance
August 23, 2010
A UNIVERSITY of South Australia
study into generic substitution in
Australia has shown that more than
a quarter of patients in urban areas
will not accept generic alternatives,
despite being offered them by
pharmacists.
According to the 6minutes GP
newsletter, the research was
published in the Health Policy
journal on Fri, and found that
although 96% of pharmacists
recommended generic alternatives,
patient acceptance of alternatives
was less than 80% overall.
“Government policy has been a
successful driver of increasing the
frequency of generic medicines
substitution in Australia,” said the
researchers, but this has reportedly
not flowed into patient acceptance
towards generics.
“Education and information
about the quality and effectiveness
of generic medicines by
pharmacists, government and other
health practitioners is needed to
improve patient acceptance,” they
suggested.
The generic substitution practices
of 82 pharmacies were included in
the study, and although the vast
majority recommended generic
alternatives, patient acceptance
was particularly low for respiratory
drugs (63%), skin medications
(67%) and hormonal drugs (38%).
Patients with chronic disease were
also much less likely to accept
generic alternatives to their regular
medications, the authors said.
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