[Verified Answer]: A nursing student’s patient claims to get…

A nursing student’s patient claims to get better effects with a tablet of Brand X of a drug than with a tablet of Brand Y of the same drug. Both brands contain the same amount of the active ingredient. The nursing student asks how this occurs. How does the nurse educator reply to the student? Tablets can differ in composition and can have differing rates of disintegration and dissolution, which can alter the drug’s effects in the body. Advertising by pharmaceutical companies can enhance patient expectations of one brand over another, leading to a placebo effect. Because the drug preparations are chemically equivalent, the effects of the two brands must be identical. The bioavailability of a drug is determined by the amount of the drug in each dose.