Attitude and perception of patients and health care practitioners toward oral sustained release dosage forms in Palestine.

AIM: To evaluate the knowledge of health professionals in Palestine regarding the advantages of sustained release dosage forms (SRDFs) over conventional therapy.
METHODS: Data were gathered from a questionnaire that was handed out to community pharmacists, physicians and patients. Pharmaceutical industry decision makers were enrolled in this study. Data were analyzed using the SPSS.
RESULTS: Pharmacists (92.9%) and 89.2% of physicians thought that SRDFs improve patient compliance. 81.5% of pharmacists and 77% of physicians were in agreement regarding the capacity of SRDFs to maintain therapeutic activity during night. In this study, 81.5% of pharmacists and 81% of physicians believed that SRDFs provide further advantage with psychiatric patients who forget to take their medications. Pharmacists (63.1%) and only 63.5% of physicians believed that SRDFs yield a time saving for nurses who use SRDFs in hospital. Only 45.3% of physicians and 43.4% of pharmacists thought that SRDFs result in cost saving due to better disease management. Pharmacists (95.2%) and 95.9% of physicians agreed that SRDFs could be the right choice for faith patient's who must take their medication during the month of Ramadan. Pharmacists (66.7%) and 50.7% of physicians recognize that SRDFs may be unsafe if they are improperly formulated. Bad swallowing was also recognized as inconveniences of SRDFs by 67.9% of pharmacists and 57.3% of physicians. Given the above advantages, 75% of patients showed economical problems regarding the cost of the single course therapy of SRDFs and 100% of interviewed patients were enthusiastic about the advantage of SRDFs during Ramadan.
CONCLUSION: The advantages of SRDFs are not completely understood by Palestinian health professionals. Pharmaceutical industries should pay more attention to the development and advertising of SRDFs due to the valuable advantages of these dosage forms.