[Views of primary care users concerning generic medicines and the cost of medication]

To assess primary care users' views on generic drugs, approach to them and degree of understanding of them; and to find the importance they attach to the economic cost of medication.

Transversal, descriptive study.

Primary care.

A sample of 231 patients was selected from all the people over 18 who attended the health centre for medical consultation during 2001.

60% (95% CI, 55.22%-67.42%) of those surveyed said they had heard of generic medicines. The communications media were the main source of information, accounting for 78.4% of cases (95% CI, 69.19%-83.96%). 48.04% (95% CI, 38.04%-58.16%) of those who had heard of generic medicines had taken them on some occasion; and 32.4% (95% CI, 23.42%-42.34%) normally took them. 76.47% (95% CI, 67.04%-84.30%) did not mind or, where appropriate, would not mind if their doctor changed a medicine they normally took for a generic one. The mean age of those who did not mind was significantly lower than that of those who did. 50% (95% CI, 42.25%-52.75%) of those questioned were very interested in the cost of drugs prescribed by their doctors: people still working were more interested than those on a pension. 67.6% (95% CI, 60.06%-74.61%) believed that doctors should try to prescribe the cheapest drugs, as long as they were equally efficacious. 78.8% of those questioned (95% CI, 71.91%-84.70%) would choose the cheaper of two drugs which were the same bar the cost.

Most patients in our study were aware of generic drugs and were not against the replacement of a medicine they were already taking by a generic one. They did not relate drugs' cost to their quality.