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- Thursday, January 30, 2003
- Substitution of Foreign Prescribed Medicines by Community Pharmacies in Palestine: A Legal and Pharmaco-Economic Analysis
- Published at:Not Found
Substitution of Foreign Prescribed Medicines by Community
Pharmacies in Palestine: A Legal and Pharmaco-Economic Analysis
Waleed M. Sweileh
College of Pharmacy, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
E-mail: [email protected]
Received: (18/9/2002), Accepted: (4/3/2003)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to asses the rate and the trend of foreign drug
substitution by community pharmacies in Palestine, and to analyze the legal issues
influencing prescription substitution such as physicians' acceptance. The study was
made on a randomly selected list of foreign drugs. A total of 1425 prescriptions from
twenty community pharmacies were analyzed for foreign drug substitution. The
substitution rate was 25.8%. More than 58% of these substitutions were agreed by the
prescribing physician. The most commonly substituted drugs were those that have a
price difference compared with the local product equivalents. This study shows that
foreign drug substitution in Palestine is common and mostly encouraged by patients to
reduce prescription costs. This study also, shows that there is a need to modify the
existing pharmacy practice law regarding brand name substitution.
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