Knowledge, attitude, and practice on adverse drug reaction monitoring among health-care professionals in a tertiary care hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Pharmacovigilance has constantly gained importance in the past 15 years, relating to absolute amount of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and to the fact that several hospital admissions are due to ADRs. Knowledge of ADRs and practice of pharmacovigilance by healthcare professionals will definitely help to evaluate the quality of pharmacotherapy in hospitals and effectively decrease the occurrence of ADRs. Aims and Objectives: The objectives are as follows (1) To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of health care professionals (HCPs) toward ADR monitoring and (2) to assess the causation of underreporting of ADRs. Materials and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. The questionnaire was distributed to 328 HCPs which included al doctors, nurses and pharmacists serving in ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Kalaburagi. HCPs who did not give consent to fill the questionnaire were excluded from the study. Results: The response rate was 82.92%. In our study, only 25.75% were aware that ADR reporting is to be done by doctors, nurses and pharmacists, and 40.44% felt that ADR reporting should primarily done by doctors alone. Overall participants who knowledge about ADRs and pharmacovigilance were 48.8%. Although 75.7% participants agreed that ADR reporting is important, over 76.5% HCPs felt that reporting ADR would be an obligation. In this study 12.5% HCPs have ever reported ADR despite having experienced one during their clinical practice. Majority of the HCPs had a belief that a single ADR reporting would not change the ADR database; hence, this could be one of the reasons for low rate of reporting ADRs. Conclusion: In our study, though the level of knowledge and attitude toward ADR reporting was adequate among the HCPs, there was poor practice of ADR reporting. Necessary measures to be taken to create awareness among HCPs about Pharmacovigilance Programme in India. They should be trained to spontaneously report ADRs.