RESUMO
Background: Pharmacovigilance (PV) is an integral and essential part of patient care. PV deals with the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problems. The aims of PV are to improve patient care, public health and safety in relation to the use of medicines, to contribute to the assessment of benefit, harm, effectiveness and risk of medicines, encouraging their safe, rational and more effective use, to promote understanding, education and clinical training in PV and its effective communication to health professionals and the public. The objective of present study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and perception of PV among nurses in a rural tertiary care center, Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), B G Nagar. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among nurses of AIMS, B G Nagar, Mandya, Karnataka. Results: A total of 94 respondents were analyzed. 75.53% of participants knew the definition of PV, 77.65% participants knew the international PV reporting centers, 81.91% have knowledge about regulatory body responsible for monitoring adverse drug reactions (ADRs), 80.85% have good orientation of specific ADR format, 98.93% of nurses thought ADR reporting is necessary, 86.13% have attitude of encouraging non-medical persons to report ADR and 95.74% of nurses want PV to be taught in detail and 87.23% nurses reported that they came across ADRs. 31.91% participants are not aware about how to report ADR. Lack of knowledge about the reporting procedure is the major reason for under-reporting. Conclusions: The majority of nurses has good knowledge and attitude toward PV and understand the need for reporting in our study, but unfortunately the actual practice of ADR reporting is still deficient among them. Training programs and continued medical education type of interventions periodically can improve the knowledge toward PV.
RESUMO
Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADR) are the fourth leading cause of mortality and a great concern in therapeutics. Pharmacovigilance is more important in India as the health care system is inadequate with poor doctor-patient ratio, high incidence of self-medication, and presence of counterfeit drugs. The present study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the pattern of ADR occurring in a rural tertiary care hospital with a newly established pharmacovigilance center and to identify the most frequent ADRs, common drugs implicated and severity of reactions. Methods: A non-interventional observational prospective study was conducted over a year. The red boxes for dropping the filled yellow ADR forms were installed in all the wards and outpatient departments. Additional information and missing data were obtained personally by either consulting the physician or through case sheets. Results: The most common class of drugs implicated in the causation of ADRs was antimicrobials (52%), followed by drugs acting on the central nervous system. The most commonly observed ADRs were dermatological Type B reactions. The majority of the reactions belonged to possible or probable category, but no reaction was categorized as definite. Conclusion: Dermatological reactions are the most common ADR occurring in our hospital and antimicrobials are the most common causative drugs. The reporting rate was adequate, and there is still a need for increasing the awareness and knowledge about ADR reporting system and pharmacovigilance for promoting the safe use of drugs.