Availability and affordability of medications used in the management of osteoarthritis in selected health facilities in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

To determine the availability and affordability of some medicines used to manage osteoarthritis (OA) in some public and private health facilities in Benin City, Edo state. This cross-sectional study was carried out in 33 health facilities. An instrument obtained from the recommendation of the World Health Organization/ Health Action International was used for data collection which was analyzed using one-way ANOVA and unpaired t-test were performed (P ≤ 0.05). Product availability was measured by ascertaining the presence of the product at the point of sale at the time of the survey. Affordability was determined by using WakAfford 1.0. In the category of the lowest-priced generics (LPG) and originator brands (OB), 34.62% and 11.54% of drugs recorded high percentage availability respectively.Additionally, a higher availability was recorded in the community pharmacy for both categories. All the OB OAmedications were unaffordable whereas only 5 drugs were affordable in the lowest-priced generic category. Generally,medications were found to be more affordable at the community pharmacy and less affordable at the private hospitals(P < 0.05). The LPG drugs have a higher availability and affordability than the OB medications used in OA treatment.