Vol 13, Issue 9, 2020 Online - 2455-3891 Print - 0974-2441 KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARD E-PHARMACY AMONG THE PHYSICIANS OF SOUTH RAJASTHAN, INDIA: A PILOT SURVEY ARVIND KUMAR YADAV 1 *, MEENU PICHHOLIYA 1 , HAIYA SHETH 1 , SANGITA GUPTA 1 , SAVITA CHOUDHARY 2 1 Department of Pharmacology, Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. 2 Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Email: drakyadav14@gmail.com Received: 25 June 2020, Revised and Accepted: 21 July 2020 ABSTRACT Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of physicians of South Rajasthan, India, toward e-pharmacy. Methods: After obtaining ethical approval, this cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was carried out for 6 months at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Physicians willing to participate were included in the study. The study questionnaire comprised 10 questions which were validated by experts. Physicians were requested to fill up the questionnaire in the presence of researcher and return it back. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel Office 365. Results: A total of 170 questionnaires were analyzed. Male/female ratio of the physicians was 1.24:1. About 91.76% of physicians had heard of e-pharmacy but only 22.35% had ever used it. About 89.41% of physicians had never asked patients to buy medicines from e-pharmacy. About 67.64% of physicians considered e-pharmacy as ethical. However, 56.47% of physicians thought that e-pharmacy is risky. Conclusion: Physicians must remain up-to-date about these recent technologies like e-pharmacy; as it is expected to become much more common in the next few years. Ethical and non-risky methods should be adopted for the same by them. Overall, a balance should be maintained while opting for online pharmacy. Keywords: E-pharmacy, Internet, Medicines, Physicians, Prescription. INTRODUCTION In the present era of e-learning, online shopping is increasing day by day. Majority of the products are available online nowadays. These also include medicines for diseases, both prescription and non-prescription medications. Thus, an online pharmacy is an internet-based vendor that sells medicines and includes both legitimate and illegitimate pharmacies [1]. Such online pharmacy is also known as internet pharmacy or electronic pharmacy (e-pharmacy) or cyber pharmacy [2]. In majority cases, e-pharmacy medicines are dispensed to those consumers who have obtained a prescription from the doctor and submitted it to online pharmacy [3]. However, there are few risks with its purchase. The World Health Organization has also emphasized that e-pharmacy is associated with significant health risks [4]. These include easy approach and availability of illegal or unapproved drugs, and medications offered without a prescription [5]. Overall, e-pharmacy has made the process of procuring medicines extremely convenient for the consumers by providing easy opportunities to purchase, resulting in its increased demands globally. In 2016, the value of Indian health-care medicine market was estimated at $27.57 billion US dollars and is expected to reach $55 billion US dollars by 2020 [6]. In May 2017, Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies Global had conducted national polling firm according to which there were approximately 35,000 active online pharmacies globally and almost 96% online pharmacies did not comply with the U.S. federal and state laws and pharmacy standards; nearly 12% of online pharmacies (roughly 3400 sites) sold controlled substances like opioids; and 600 illegal online pharmacy websites were launched each month [7]. Among these, hardly 400 online pharmacies followed safety guidelines strictly and were certified by National Association of Boards of Pharmacies [8]. In 2015, Indian Internet Pharmacy Association was formed by 11 initial start-up e-pharmacy companies such as 1mg, Netmeds, Bookmeds, mChemist, Medlife, Pharmeasy, Medidart, Medstar, Zigy, Save on medicals, and Save my meds [9]. The distribution and selling of counterfeit medicines by illegitimate online pharmacies have increased too. This could result in patients not responding to the drugs prescribed for a particular disease. There is possibility of fake medicines being purchased from online pharmacy portals and consumed by the patients. Several nations have taken steps toward reducing and controlling the usage of e-pharmacy through warnings, consumer protection acts, and federal or state laws. However, Indian pharmacy laws remain the same for online and offline pharmacy [10]. Thus, even though the marketing of drugs over internet is an inevitable outcome of the booming e-economy; it does pose unique ethical, legal, and quality challenges which are important from the consumer, physician, and regulator’s perspectives [11]. Globally, many studies have been conducted for knowledge and perception of online pharmacy among consumers [4,12,13]. However, literature search showed that there were hardly any studies which discussed the knowledge of physicians on the subject of e-pharmacy. Such studies could contribute in making e-pharmacy more reliable and safer for patient care in today’s digital world. Thus, a questionnaire- based study was planned among the physicians to analyze their attitude and knowledge toward e-pharmacy. METHODS This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted for a period of 6 months at the Department of Pharmacology of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, South Rajasthan, India, only after obtaining an approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Physicians working at the study center and willing to participate were included in the study. A questionnaire was prepared for the study. It comprised 10 questions that were developed and validated by experts. After a few suggestions, this © 2020 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4. 0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ajpcr.2020.v13i9.38862 Research Article