[Generic drugs in a district hospital. Intervention strategies]

To know the prescription of generic drugs in specialized attention and the impact of two different intervention strategies:

Intervention trial with evaluation and later comparison. The data on the use of generic drugs are obtained from the medical reports. After an informative note of general character we repeated the taking of data one month later. In the service of Medicine we also analysed each doctor's profile prescriptions and a personalized informative note was edited and accompanied by a brief verbal explication of the campaign. Then repeated the collection of data to the week and the month.

1545 reports were revised (3460 prescribed drugs). 42% of the medication could be prescribed as generic but it was only made in 10% (21% in Internal Medicine). After the informative note no significant variations were observed. Only in Internal Medicine an initial increment was obtained (21 to 56%, RR 0.38, IC 0.26-0.55) that it disappeared at month.

The utility of the intervention to generic promotion is limited and transitory. Besides improve the information, seems necessary the implication of the physician in the promotion campaigns.