Drug brand preference and its effect on medication compliance and efficacy for outpatients with depression / 药学实践杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate drug brand preference and its effect on medication compliance and efficacy in pa-tients with depression ,to guide patient′s rational use of limited medical resources and achieve a safe and effective drug use . Methods 459 outpatients were divided into the brand drug group and the generic drug group according to the current drug therapy stage .The patients in both groups were assessed by drug brand preference and medication compliance .In the brand group ,the patients with high brand preference were chosen to replace with generic medication intervention for 8 weeks .Drug education and psychological support were provided to those patients .Evaluation of therapeutic effect was conducted before and after generic replacement .Results About 1/3 patients had high response and 2/3 patients had low or no response to the brand preference .Patients on brand drugs had slightly higher brand preference than patients with generic drugs . Overall , the patients′response to brand preference gradually decreased with the duration of treatment .In general ,the medication compli-ance was acceptable .The patients taking brand drugs displayed significantly higher medication compliance than the patients taking generics .Correlation analysis showed that in brand medicine group ,medication compliance was closely related to brand response ,but negatively correlated with the patient′s age and treatment duration .In generics group ,patient medication compli-ance was not related to brand response ,but closely related with the degree of education and negatively related with the patient′s age and treatment duration .The anti-depression medication maintained same effectiveness in the generic group before and after the replacement ,and no severe adverse reactions occurred .Conclusion Medication compliance for patients taking branded drugs was associated with brand response .With medication education and psychological support ,alternative generic medicine treatment can give good efficacy with very minor side effects .The medical staff should provide medication education including pharmacoeconomics and the biological equivalence to guide the patients with rational use of the limited medical resources .