Patients’ Opinion on Availability and Price of Drugs in the General Outpatient Department of a Teaching Hospital, Southeast Nigeria

Aim: Patients perception of health care delivery system can be expressed as an opinion. The aim of the study is to assess patients’ opinion on availability and cost of drugs in the General Outpatient Department of a state teaching hospital in Nigeria.

Study Design: The study was of descriptive, cross-sectional design.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the General Outpatient department, Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu state, Nigeria. It was conducted between August 1st and October 31st, 2017.

Methodology: Information was collected from 313 patients exiting the Pharmacy unit, using structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for analysis, and the results expressed as frequencies and percentages. Education, sex, and age patterns of the responses were looked at.

Results: A total of 313 patients responded, 131 (41.9%) males and 182 (58.1%) females. Out of these, 91 (29.0%) were of the opinion that drugs were reasonably or completely available, while 184(58.8%) reported that it was either few or completely unavailable; with 38(12.1%) having no opinion on availability. With respect to price; 198(63.3%) believed that price is affordable or very affordable, while 78(24.9%) thought it was exorbitant or very exorbitant; with 37(11.8%) being uncertain about the price of drugs.

Conclusions: In LMIC, inadequate stock of drugs in health facilities is a common occurrence. More than half of patients that presented in the study health facility were of the opinion that only few prescribed drugs, or completely none were available. However, most of them believed that the price of drugs was affordable or very affordable. It is crucial that governments and health care managers redouble their efforts towards provision of drugs, if meaningful progress will be made in the area of global Universal Health Coverage.