Assessment of the knowledge and perception of generic medications among pharmacy and medical students in the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Background Generic substitution has become a common practice in several countries, primarily because of a major cost-minimizing strategy without compromising healthcare quality. Objective The study was carried out to assess the knowledge and perception of generic medication among final year pharmacy and medical students in the University of Sharjah. Method A cross-sectional survey was designed, pre-validated, and distributed during the period of September to November 2019 in the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The study research covered various aspects on knowledge and perception of generic medicines. It was distributed to 180 final year pharmacy and medicine students. Data were analyzed using SPSS, and Chi square test was used to determine the level of significance at p < 0.05. Result A total of 171 of 180 questionnaires were returned back including 87 and 84 surveys from pharmacy and medical students respectively producing a response rate of 95%. The majority of respondents in both collages were females, Arabs, and with parents of non-health care professions. Significantly more pharmacy than medical students agreed that cost-effective therapy and generics were covered in their study courses, generics are bioequivalent to brands and must contain the same amount of active ingredients like brands, that they are confident of their knowledge and more easily recall drugs by their generic names. Again more pharmacy students agreed that pharmacists should have the right to perform substitution but disagreed to the statement that generics takes longer time to produce therapeutic effects than brands. Conclusion Overall, Final-year students of pharmacy had better level of knowledge and perception of generic medicines and their right to perform generic substitution. Medical students seem to have limited knowledge of certain important aspects. Therefore, improvement of educational courses of future health-care professionals should be implemented early to enhance students’ awareness toward generic substitution.