Journal of Drugs and Pharmaceutical Science Volume 3(1), pages 12-19, April 2019 Article Number: 4BC9315F2 https://doi.org/10.31248/JDPS2019.018 http://www.integrityresjournals.org/journal/JDPS Full Length Research The perception of healthcare providers on the quality of locally made drugs and imported drugs Modupe I. Builders 1* , Philip F. Builders 2 and Linda Iliya 2 1 Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Bingham University, Karu, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. 2 Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Kaduna State, Nigeria. *Corresponding author. Email: modupebuilders@yahoo.com Copyright © 2019 Builders et al. This article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received 18th March, 2019; Accepted 29th April, 2019 ABSTRACT: Locally made drugs are an important policy way of reducing out-of-pocket expenditure on medicines. Therefore, negative perceptions of their quality affect utilization and raise issues of confidence and trust in medicines and health services. This study examines the perception of healthcare professionals to locally made drugs in relation to their understanding and opinions of generic and brand name drugs with the use of administering questionnaires to pharmacists, doctors, and nurses in tertiary hospitals in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Majority of the respondents were nurses (58.1%), 50.1% of the participant were females, they were in the age range of 20 to 30 years (37.8%). 46.4% of the nurses strongly agreed that locally manufactured medicines are more affordable than the foreign made, 15.9% of the nurses strongly agreed that locally manufactured medicines produce more side effects/adverse events than the foreign made while 19.6% of the pharmacists strongly agreed that prescribing decision is influenced by medical representatives of foreign made medicines. The lack of consensus in the perceptions of locally made drugs and foreign drugs may result in friction among health professionals as well as discrimination in patronage of foreign and locally made drugs. Keywords: Healthcare providers, imported drugs, locally made drugs, perception, quality. INTRODUCTION Drug use is a complex subject involving the prescriber, the patient (client) and pharmaceutical institutions. It is influenced by factors such as drug availability, prescribers’ experience, and health budget, promotional activities of the pharmaceutical industry, cultural factors, communication system and the complex interaction between these factors. Hence, its study is more sociological than biomedical (WHO, 1985). In most developing countries such as Nigeria, drugs remain the fulcrum of healthcare in order to meet the high demand in drugs due to the ever increasing population. The importation of drug products is the main stay due to the availability of only few indigenous pharmaceutical companies and also their relatively low throughput of indigenous manufacturers, hence the large imports of foreign manufactured drugs (Frost and Reich, 2009). Time and again the importance of generic prescribing has been emphasized, primarily to reduce the cost of drugs (Mukherjee, 2013). A “generic” medicine is a multisource pharmaceutical product which is meant to be interchangeable with the comparator product (also known as proprietary, brand or innovator product) (WHO, 2005). In Nigeria as well as many developing countries of the world, there is a strong apathy by the general populace for locally manufactured goods in relation to the similarly strong attraction to the foreign ones (Ogunnaike, 2010). Apart from the over the counter drugs (OTC), a large variety of the prescription drugs are used only after recommendation and prescription by a qualified health practitioner. For many patients especially the inpatients, drugs are used under supervision by appropriate healthcare professionals. The primary healthcare providers in Nigeria’s healthcare system are essentially the medical doctors, pharmacists and nurses. The doctors, pharmacists and nurses are involved in the day to day coordination and management of the patients and their