Knowledge, attitude and practices of generic names usage in prescription among the medical postgraduate residents of a tertiary care teaching hospital: an observational cross-sectional study

Background: Establishment of Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Kendras through Pradhan Mantri Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) is a breakthrough step to reduce expenses in healthcare due to costly branded names in prescription. Medical council of India also amended clause 1.5 of the Indian Medical Council Regulations, 2002 mandating the doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names in place of brand names. Moreover, medical practitioner nowadays has raised concern about education/qualification of the chemist who is being made the decision maker.Methods: In this questionnaire based cross-sectional observational study, all students admitted to post graduation course in academic year 2018 were included and those who were not willing to give consent were excluded from study. A knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) questionnaire containing 12 questions was assessed by using true/false type and Likert scale-based questions. Descriptive statistics used to generate frequencies, percentages and proportions.Results: Majority of the population have answered positively about knowledge questions. Surprisingly 72.41% population don’t know about process of new drug approval. Most of them agreed to pros and cons of generic drug prescribing. 58.14% population always write generic names in their prescription. Shockingly 74.42% population write prescription based on their knowledge from promotional literature by a medical representative.Conclusions: Findings of present study highlights usefulness of the practice of writing generic names in prescriptions. It also raises concern about professional qualification of the chemist who will be decision maker in drug delivery to consumers