Generic drugs at hospital discharge: assessment in geriatrics

Abstract

To assess the impact of physician awareness to promote the prescription and the dispensing of generic drugs at hospital discharge. The study consisted in a Before/After Study design including the analysis of medical prescriptions at hospital discharge, after a pharmaceutical intervention to physicians in a geriatric ward. Each drug was classified according to its terms of prescribing (International Nonproprietary Name (INN), Generic or Trade Name). The primary endpoint defined is the rate of medication prescribed by INN or generic. Statistical analysis was performed on all medicines and according to the prescribers' status (junior/senior). Three hundred and fifty one drugs were prescribed in the group "before intervention" versus 301 in the group "after". The average number of drugs prescribed per patient was similar between the two groups (9.5 drugs/patient). A generic prescription has been improved by 5% between the two periods (19.7% "before" vs 24.3% "after", p=0.27). Analysis on prescriber status indicates that the pharmaceutical intervention had a significant impact on junior physicians, which resulted in improved prescribing of drug (INN or generic) from 17.6% to 31.4% between the two periods (p=0.006). The pharmaceutical intervention to physicians has led to an improvement of drug prescription (INN or generic) at hospital discharge. This awareness has affected mainly junior prescribers hence the need to extend this type of intervention to all prescribers of our establishment.