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Objectives: To review the literature on consumers' knowledge, attitudes, and opinions about and use of generic medications and to ascertain the official policies of several consumer organizations regarding generic medications and therapeutic substitution.
Data Sources: Articles indexed under terms such as consumers, generic medications, generic drugs, multisource medications, or multisource drugs. These terms were used to search indexing services such as MEDLINE, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, CINAHL (a database of nursing and allied health literature), Science Citation Index, Psychological Abstracts, and Wilson Indexes to Journal Articles. This literature search was supplemented by a telephone survey of 12 consumer organizations.
Study Selection: Performed by the authors.
Data Synthesis: In general, consumers were positively inclined toward generic medications, but views differed by ethnicity, education, income, age, risk perception, knowledge, and past experience. Consultation with health care professionals and the availability of prescription drug coverage influenced consumers' use of generic medications. Few consumer organizations had official policies addressing the use of generic medications, but most of these organizations encouraged consumers to learn more about their medical conditions and to consult their physician or pharmacist about the appropriateness of prescribed medication.
Conclusion: More research is needed on consumers' decision-making processes and behaviors regarding generic medications. Mass education efforts, financial incentives, and greater communication among patients and health care professionals should continue to influence the use of generic medications.
In the debate over the use of brandname versus generic medications, the voice of the patient or consumer, for whom the medication is prescribed, often goes unheard. In this article we provide a chronological review of the literature on consumers' knowledge, attitudes, and opinions about, and use of, generic medications. We also offer several recommendations that pharmacists can implement in their practice settings to improve their patients' medication use. In addition, to get a complete picture of consumers' views of generic drug products, we supplemented this review with a telephone survey of 12 consumer organizations thought to represent the views of their constituents regarding the use of generic medications and therapeutic substitution. This article is one of three in this issue of JAPhA that, taken together, should provide a more complete understanding of the views of generic drug use by the three major players involved -- physicians, pharmacists, and consumers.
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