Journal of Patient Care

Factors contributing to perceived quality of medicines in district Rawalpindi: A cross sectional study

World Congress on Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare

September 07-09, 2017 London, UK

Maryam Khalid

Government of Punjab, Pakistan

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pat Care

Abstract:

Poor quality of medicine is a serious threat to public health in many developing countries. Poor-quality medicine has an unknown but potentially severe impact on public health. Markets in developing countries may contain poor-quality medicine for several possible reasons. Regulators are typically weak and impose few restrictions on drug manufacturers and sellers. Economies of scale in the production or sale of high-quality medicine may also contribute to the situation. To achieve high quality, manufacturers must adhere to stringent to quality control procedures and distributors must safeguard products which require fixed investments. The objective of study was to find determinants of perceived quality of medicines in District Rawalpindi and see the effects of demography on the general perception regarding medicines in the district. This is a community based cross sectional study based on systematic random sampling technique. The quality perception is chosen as outcome variable while sex, education, income, purchase of medicine from same store, presence of licensed pharmacist, attitude of pharmacist, side effects of medicines, quality seal of medicines and packing of medicines are taken as explanatory variables. The data was obtained from five randomly selected Union Councils of District Rawalpindi with the help of a structured questionnaire. Chi square is used to check the statistical significance between different variables after that Stepwise Binary Logistics Regression is used to estimate the results. This community based study of a systematic random sample of five UCs of Rawalpindi found that consumers, generally, have positive quality perceptions about medicines. Few participants reported concerns about the safety or side effects of medicines (experienced other than those written on the packing), only a minority believe that brand-name drugs are more effective than generics (19%), and most believe that generics are a better value than branded medicines (72%). The results show that of all the explanatory variables demography and quality seal and packing of medicines are highly and positively associated with the quality perception of medicines.