Acceptance of replacement by generic medicines at community pharmacies

To analyse the acceptance of the replacement of patent medicines by generic medicines at community pharmacies and to study the variability of the answers in terms of the characteristics of the user, prescription and community pharmacy. Observational, cross-sectional study. Community pharmacies in Albacete and its province, Spain. Consecutive selection of 769 users in 21 pharmacies during February 2005. Users of community pharmacies who were asked to replace a prescribed drug by a generic one when the prescribed one was unavailable. The proposals were recorded in a register and the data were processed with the SPSS statistical package. 90.8% of the population accepted the replacement (n=698; 95% CI, 88.5%-92.7%). The main cause of non-acceptance was that the patient did not want changes in his/her medical prescription (50.7%). The acceptance of the change was inversely proportional to the age of the patient (P=.005) and directly proportional to the number of inhabitants of the population centre where the pharmacy was located (P< .001). Non-acceptance was higher for "fantasy brands" than generic ones (P=.005), in repeated treatments versus first-time prescriptions (P< .001) and in free prescriptions versus those involving a contribution (P=.002). A high acceptance of replacement by generic drugs in community pharmacies (90.8%) was seen. The main cause of non-acceptance of the replacement was because the patient did not want any changes in the prescription.