Shakeel Sadia, Hassali Mohamed Azmi, Rehman Hina, Rehman Anees Ur, Muneswarao Jaya
Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
Int J Gen Med. 2020 Nov 11;13:1075-1082. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S266545. eCollection 2020.
Pharmacists being the drug experts need to be well aware of the applied handling of biosimilar medicines (BSMs). They are an integral educator, trailblazer, and advocate of biosimilar integration across all clinical settings. Therefore, the current study was conducted to assess the pharmacists' knowledge, attitude, and practices of integrating BSMs into clinical practice.
The cross-sectional study was conducted from August 2019 to November 2019. The community pharmacies, clinical and academic settings in Karachi were approached for gathering the responses of pharmacists towards BSMs and interchangeable products using a 30-item survey form. Pearson correlation and independent sample -test were used to identify the relationship among independent variables and the responses, considering p values <0.05 as statistically significant.
Overall, there were 305 survey forms used with a response rate of 87.14%. More than 80% of the respondents have good knowledge about the definition, characteristics, safety and efficacy, compatibility, cost issues, and utilization of BSMs. Around half of the respondents (48.9%, [95% CI 46.6-51.2]) were confident in using BSMs in clinical practice. However, they were concerned about the BSM's safety profile (45.2%, [95% CI 42.1-48.3]), quality (30.2%, [95% CI 28.3-32.1]), and efficacy issues (32.3%, [95% CI 31.2-37.5]).
The findings revealed that pharmacists were well informed about the BSMs. However, some of the responses to the attitude demonstrated a lack of understanding of the application of that knowledge. The respondents persuaded that advanced patterns of diseases, product marketing stipulations, and need for better patient care drives higher demand for developing BSMs and were enthusiastic about gaining more insight to integrate BSMs into routine clinical practice.
药剂师作为药物专家，需要充分了解生物类似药（BSMs）的应用处理。他们是生物类似药在所有临床环境中整合的重要教育者、开拓者和倡导者。因此，开展本研究以评估药剂师将生物类似药整合到临床实践中的知识、态度和实践情况。
本横断面研究于2019年8月至2019年11月进行。通过一份包含30个条目的调查问卷，对卡拉奇的社区药房、临床和学术机构进行调查，以收集药剂师对生物类似药和可互换产品的反应。采用Pearson相关性分析和独立样本检验来确定自变量与反应之间的关系，将p值<0.05视为具有统计学意义。
总体而言，共使用了305份调查问卷，回复率为87.14%。超过80%的受访者对生物类似药的定义、特征、安全性和有效性、兼容性、成本问题及使用情况有良好的了解。约一半的受访者（48.9%，[95%置信区间46.6 - 51.2]）对在临床实践中使用生物类似药有信心。然而，他们担心生物类似药的安全性（45.2%，[95%置信区间42.1 - 48.3]）、质量（30.2%，[95%置信区间28.3 - 32.1]）和有效性问题（32.3%，[95%置信区间31.2 - 37.5]）。
研究结果表明药剂师对生物类似药有充分的了解。然而，部分态度方面的回答显示出对该知识应用的理解不足。受访者认为疾病模式的进展、产品营销规定以及更好的患者护理需求推动了对生物类似药开发的更高需求，并热衷于获得更多见解以将生物类似药整合到常规临床实践中。
