ABSTRACT
Background: Monitoring and reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is very important to minimize or prevent drug caused harm. Thus, pharmacovigilance deals with it and ensures the patient safety. However, most of pharmacovigilance centers are concentrated in the urban tertiary care hospitals and contributes the maximum reports of ADRs. Participation of the rural health workers is equally important towards the success of pharmacovigilance.Methods: The study was conducted using a pre-validated questionnaire among forty doctors in rural Sub district hospital Akhnoor, Jammu after approval of the institutional ethical committee of Government Medical Jammu. The questionnaire consisted of 16 questions (7 related to knowledge, 4 related to attitude, and 4 related to practice and one question pertained to under reporting). The responses were recorded, and data obtained was analysed and presented as number and percentage.Results: Total 66.6% doctors gave correct response regarding the definition of pharmacovigilance and purpose of pharmacovigilance was given by 76.6% of doctors. 70% agreed that ADR reporting is a professional obligation for them. 80% responded that health care professionals are responsible for reporting ADRs. 63.3% of them were aware of a pharmacovigilance programme of India. A total of 96.6% doctors agreed that reporting of ADR is necessary and 93.3% were of the view that pharmacovigilance should be taught in detail. Majority of doctors have experienced ADRs in patients and 36.6% have seen the ADR reporting form. However, only 10% have ever reported ADR to a pharmacovigilance center. No remuneration (50%), lack of time to report ADR (30%), belief that a single unreported case may not affect ADR database (10%), and difficulty to decide whether ADR has occurred or not (10%) were important causes for under reporting of ADRs.Conclusions: Current study has shown that majority of the doctors have good knowledge and attitude about pharmacovigilance. However, under reporting is still a major concern among rural doctors and efforts are needed to address this problem of under reporting by conducting CMEs on regular basis.
ABSTRACT
Background: Capsules are the most commonly used solid drug dosage form and are made up of gelatin or non gelatin. Currently the gelatin based capsules drug formulations are more used. However, current issue of vegetarian and non vegetarian capsules has come up due to recent Indian government initiative to promote vegetarian capsules.Methods: There were 100 capsule dosage forms were examined for the gelatin or HPMC wall contents and nature of medicine contained in capsules, whether ayurvedic or allopathic.Results: Out of 100 capsules studied 55 had gelatin wall base while 25 had HPMC and 20 capsule labels did not mention the nature of capsule wall constituent. Out of 55 gelatin capsules 30 were of allopathic while 25 capsules were of ayurvedic medicines. Among HPMC, 15 were ayurvedic while 10 allopathic. 20 capsules had no mention of its constituent and among these non labelled capsule formulations had 11 from ayurvedic and 9 from allopathic medicines.Conclusions: The current study revealed that gelatin capsules forms bulk in Indian market. Even the gelatin capsules contained ayurvedic medicines while 10% of HPMC capsules contained allopathic medicines. Non labelled capsules formed 20% of total capsules. These findings suggest wider scope for promotion of HPMC based capsules.
ABSTRACT
Background: Indian pharmaceutical market is fast going and there is a stiff competition amongst them as single product is marketed by different brand names. The pharmaceutical houses adopt different strategies to influence the physician to promote their products. These strategies are known to influence the prescription behaviour of physician, which may have variable impact among rural and urban doctors. Aim of the study was to compare the impact of marketing strategies of pharmaceutical houses on prescription practices of rural and urban doctors.Methods: The current crossover study was conducted among urban and rural doctors. A questionnaire consisting of 17 questions was presented to the doctors and their responses regarding different aspects of marketing strategies was recorded. Comparison between two groups was done using unpaired t-test.Results: Different strategies had impact on prescription pattern of doctors working in rural and urban institutions. All 17 parameters were affected similarly except e-mailing where urban doctors were more influenced (p=0.005).Conclusions: Present study indicates marketing strategies by different pharmaceutical houses do influence prescription pattern of physicians. Both urban and rural doctors were similarly affected except e- mailing which had more impact on urban doctors.