Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting in health care professionals

Abstract

Background: Lack of awareness among healthcare professionals is cited as one of the main reasons along with under reporting of adverse drug reactions. Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) studies can help to understand various issues and improve pharmacovigilance system. Objectives: The present study was undertaken to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) regarding pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting among healthcare professionals at the various departments of hospitals in Northern Kerala to get an insight into the causes of under-reporting of ADRs. Materials and Methods: The data was collected using a pre-designed questionnaire. A total of 25multiple choice questions related to knowledge, attitude and practice. There were 6 Knowledge based 7 Attitude and 12 Practice based questions. The participants were graded in three categories as good, fair and poor depending on the mean score. The data were interpreted by calculating the frequencies, one-way ANOVA test. Results: A total of 300 healthcare professionals who completed the questionnaire were considered of which 110 were doctors, 98 were nurses and 92were pharmacist. Among them, doctors have relatively better score than nurses and pharmacists in knowledge and attitude. Most healthcare professionals have showed fair practice in pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting and the pharmacists being the best performers. Conclusion: To facilitate the culture of reporting and creating awareness among health professionals, CME, workshops, conferences, post training reminders such as periodic E-mails and SMS alerts should be conducted. Pharmacovigilance is being taught to some degree in theory, but the knowledge on the practical method is lacking. The existing academic curriculum can be amended to incorporate the application of pharmacovigilance in the medical practice.