Attitude of community pharmacists in Saudi Arabia towards adverse drug reaction

ABSTRACT

To assess the attitude and behavior of community pharmacists in Saudi Arabia regarding the reporting of adverse drug reactions [ADR]. A self-administered questionnaire was delivered to a stratified random sample of 240 community pharmacies in Riyadh city. The questionnaire comprised of 27 questions. The first twenty five questions covered pharmacists and pharmacy demographics, references available and continuing education activity, general questions aimed at establishing the extent of the respondent's knowledge about the Saudi ADR reporting system and pharmacists' behavior. One question consisted of twenty-seven item exploring the pharmacist's attitude to reporting and the factors that either positively or negatively, affecting his attitude. The total response rate was 71.7% [172/240]. Most of the respondents were expatriate employees [99.4%] with the remainder Saudi pharmacy owners. Only 21 pharmacists [13.2%] were aware of the ADR reporting program in Saudi Arabia. Ninety-seven percent of the respondents considered the reporting of ADRs to be an integral part of their professional duties and all respondents acknowledged the importance of reporting. Four percent of pharmacists surveyed claimed that they had submitted ADR report to the Ministry of Health [MOH] and 6.3% of pharmacists claimed that they submitted ADR report to the pharmaceutical company. Several barriers identified, that prevent pharmacists from reporting ADR include, unknown address [68%], reporting form not available [62.8%], do not know how to report [41.7%] and uncertainty concerning causal relationship between ADR and the drug [30.1%]. Eighty four percent of respondents mentioned receiving a feedback from the program would encourage them to report and 83.7% of respondents indicated that publication of ADR bulletin will be important to stimulate reporting. In addition, Twenty nine percent of the suggestions mentioned educating and training of the pharmacist about the program as an important element that will improve pharmacists' participation in reporting ADR. The majority of pharmacists surveyed [86.8%] were not aware of the ADRs reporting program in Saudi Arabia and only twenty-nine percent of pharmacists were aware that pharmacists in Saudi Arabia could report an ADR to MOH. The results emphasized the importance of establishing continuing efforts to promote ADR reporting program and to overcome the barriers identified by the study