Extent of Filipinos’ Awareness in Identifying Counterfeit Medicines: A Quantitative Cross-Sectional Study

Counterfeit drugs have been purposefully and falsely mislabeled in terms of their identity and/or source of both branded and generic products. The use of these drugs can lead to reduced safety and efficacy that may result in adverse events. This study aimed to assess the extent of Filipinos’ awareness in identifying counterfeit medicines, and its association with the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted on 267 Filipino consumers residing in the Philippines with the use of convenience sampling, where a pre-validated online questionnaire was utilized to gather data about the respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics, sources of information, knowledge of counterfeit medicines, and ability to identify counterfeit medicines. The study utilized frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square, and t-test for independence. Among the six demographic characteristics, only the respondents’ marital status (p-value = 0.000) had a significant association with the sources of information regarding counterfeit medicines while both age (p-value = 0.010) and marital status (p-value = 0.000) were found to be associated with their knowledge of counterfeit medicines. The results of the Chi-square test showed that a high level of knowledge was significantly associated only with a moderate level of ability to identify counterfeit medicines (p-value=0.000) since 73.03% of the sample had a high level of knowledge while 61.80% had a moderate level of ability to identify counterfeit medicines. Therefore, the need for public education and raising awareness is essential, which necessitates the involvement of healthcare professionals.