ABSTRACT
Background: India is the largest provider of generic medications globally. Despite this, several essential medicines remain inaccessible to majority of the general population, due to poor awareness, unavailability of drugs, distrust about the quality of the medicines, poor policy implementation and inadequate recommendation by doctors. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 1151 adults in rural and urban areas attached to the community outreach area of a University Medical College. Written informed consent was taken from the participants. Data was collected using a pre-tested semi-structured online questionnaire and analysed using SPSS 15.0. Results: Knowledge regarding generic medicines was found to be low among the surveyed population (666, 57.9%), irrespective of their socio-economic status, education, occupation, place of residence or presence of chronic illnesses. As the knowledge was poor, participants were briefed about the generic medicines and their benefits. Thereafter, the attitude was assessed and found to be favourable among more than half (633, 55.0%) of the surveyed population. The usage of Generic medicines was found to be poor among the respondents. Only 53 (4.6%) of the total study population had switched from branded to generic medicines in the past six months as generic medicines were less expensive compared to their branded counterparts. Conclusions: The awareness about generic drugs and its usage was poor in the surveyed population. A favourable attitude towards generic drugs was achieved by educating the people about their similarity to branded medications. Therefore, there is a need to educate people not only about the quality, safety and efficacy of the generic medicines but also about the government initiatives like the Jan Aushadhi scheme.
ABSTRACT
Background. The new guidelines issued by the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme for diagnosis of smear-positive tuberculosis recommend examination of only 2 sputum smears. We did a retrospective analysis of data from a designated microscopy centre to ascertain the diagnostic yield of 2 smears and the additional yield provided by the third smear. Methods. Data were obtained from the designated microscopy centre attached to our medical college. A total of 3257 patients with suspected tuberculosis had undergone sputum examination between September 2004 and March 2009. However, only 1762 of them had 3 sputum specimens examined. Data were entered and analysed using SPSS version 11.5. Results. Among the 1762 suspected patients, positivity in any 2 samples was found to be 17.7% while 19% were found to be positive in a single smear. A statistically insignificant association was found between the grading and positivity of the sputum samples using McNemar test. A positive third sample was found in 309 patients. If the first 2 samples were negative, the possibility of missing a third positive sample was 0.4%. Conclusion. Under field conditions, 2 sputum smears are as effective as 3 smears for diagnosing smear-positive tuberculosis.