RESUMO
Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) have been making headlines because of life threatening issues. ADRs are always underreported and still the major public health problem. Spontaneous reporting system has remained the most significant method for safeguarding patients’ lives. Objectives: Is to examine and analyse the various pharmacovigilance (PV) studies conducted among doctors and to make recommendations for future research. Study Selection: 32 studies covered from 2004 to 2014 were selected. Data Sources: Four electronic data-bases including Science-Direct, Springer-Link, PubMed and MEDLINE were used to obtain 129 relevant publications using HotBot, FreeFullPDF, and Google Scholar as search engines. Data Extraction: Studies conducted on doctors were selected covering research from ten countries. Inclusion Criteria: Only studies done from 2004 to 2014 were included, KAP studies done on ADRs and pharmacovigilance among doctors were selected. Exclusion criteria: All studies done before 2004 and studies done on general public KAP were excluded; similarly, studies conducted on healthcare professionals in general were excluded; also studies done on adverse drug event (ADE) reporting were excluded. The study was conducted from April to August, 2014. Data Synthesis: Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding ADRs reporting by doctors were poor. Longitudinal study involving educational intervention and training through workshops and seminars were found to be effective in improving doctors’ knowledge and attitude. Conclusion: There is urgent need to improve knowledge, awareness and practice of doctors on pharmacovigilance. It is imperative for WHO and national pharmacovigilance centres to take proactive measures to curve the menace of ADRs in order to safeguard the patients’ lives. The curriculum of all health and health related schools should be restructured with respect to pharmacovigilance without any delay and hesitation.
RESUMO
Background: Academic demands of medical students are quite high. They require several skills involving sensory components such as visual, auditory, reading-writing and kinesthetic modes. The academic performance naturally differs in students and depends on their study habits including the learning style. It is believed that self- confidence is the first requisite to great achievements. Objective: We undertook this study to establish our hypothesis based on the assumption that students’ self-confidence and academic performance are directly related and the differences in learning style of each student could influence the academic performance. Method: To explore the pattern of preferred learning styles of 82 students, we administered the VARK questionnaire to the participants. To assess self-esteem, Rosenberg self-esteem questionnaire was used and the academic performance was based on the overall results of the formative assessments. Results: Among the respondents, 84% preferred multimodal style of learning. Out of that, dual, trimodal and quadrimodal styles were preferred by 8.5%, 2.4% and 73.2% respectively. The remaining 16% of the students preferred single mode. Female students had more diverse learning style preferences with several VARK combinations. A large proportion of our students were in the average group in terms of self- confidence and academic performance. Conclusion: Most students in this study preferred multimodal inputs in their learning process. Our study did not reveal any major gender differences in preferred learning styles. The results of selfesteem, learning style preference and academic performance did not have any bearing on each other.