Generic medicines non-adoption: investigating the perceptions and attitudes of customers and the role of health professionals’ service network

Although generic medicines can be beneficial to patients and the healthcare system thanks to the considerably lower costs, in Italy the market penetration of these products is lower than in other European countries. Only a few partial studies have been conducted to investigate the reasons of such a low penetration rate. A lack of the information given to patients about these products emerged from these studies. The purpose of this paper is to give a further contribution to this stream of research by investigating the motivations behind Italian patients’ resistance to buy generic medicines instead of the branded ones. More specifically the (potential) influence of health professionals’ information and advice in changing customers’ attitudes towards generic medicines and their behavior is studied. In order to collect empirical evidence, a survey was conducted among a sample of Italian patients who have not adopted generics so far. 95 questionnaires were collected and analyzed, highlighting that interviewees tend to overestimate generics’ disadvantages and to underestimate generics’ benefits. Moderator effects of patients’ age and education are identified, as well. More interestingly the findings demonstrate the potential contribution that general practitioners could give to support generic medicines’ adoption. The results will be discussed and practical implications will be derived.