Medical students’ knowledge and awareness levels about biologics and biosimilars: the earlier the better?

ABSTRACT

Background

Although most studies about physician knowledge and attitude toward biosimilars have been conducted on specialists, studies addressing this issue among medical students are missing.

Objective

We aimed to evaluate the knowledge and awareness levels of biologics and biosimilars of medical students who will encounter these products soon.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, 228 medical students were grouped as preclinical (Years 1,2,3) and clinical (Years 4,5,6). Students were given a survey including demographic (grade and gender) and questions about assessing their knowledge about biologics and biosimilars.

Results

Clinical students’ knowledge was better than preclinical students (54% and 25%, respectively). Students did not know much about biosimilars (7–20%) and thought a biosimilar is identical to its generic product (35%). More than 90% of the students thought that a lesson about biologics should be included in the medical curriculum.

Conclusions

Our study showed that medical students had inadequate knowledge about biosimilars. We suggest that to establish a positive attitude toward prescribing biosimilars, knowledge about biologics and biosimilars should be delivered to physicians early, while they are still medical students, by including this topic into the medical curriculum.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical education
• biologics
• biosimilars
• medical students

Article highlights

• Biosimilars are expected to increase in the future due to the patent expiration of many reference biologics.

• Most studies about physician knowledge and attitude towards biosimilars have been conducted on specialists who use biologics in their clinical practice, but studies addressing this issue among medical students, who might be using them in the future, are missing.

• Knowledge about biologics and biosimilars should be delivered to physicians early, while they are still medical students, by including this topic into the medical curriculum.

Authors’ contributions

DDD and ZSA were involved in designing and validating the survey. ZSA collected and analyzed the data. DDD checked the accuracy of the results. DDD and ZSA were involved in the interpretation of the results and preparing the manuscript.

Declaration of interests

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is not funded.