An educational intervention to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions among undergraduates in an Indian tertiary care teaching hospital

Abstract

Background: Identification of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is first step toward preventing, treating, and reporting them, which might lead in planning appropriate risk evaluation and mitigation strategies. This very scientific activity is essence of pharmacovigilance. Assessing awareness of pharmacovigilance among the health-care professionals is of key importance for improving under reporting of ADRs. Aim and Objective: This was a study to evaluate the perceptions and knowledge regarding pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting among undergraduate students of a medical college situated at Central India using interactive educational workshop and hands-on training s tool. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective interventional knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) questionnaire-based study included 200 undergraduate MBBS students. The questionnaire contains 20 standard KAP questions, validation of questionnaire was done by senior subject experts and with similar studies conducted previously. All the participants who administered pre-intervention questionnaire were part of interactive educational intervention. A post-intervention questionnaire survey was used to evaluate the impact of effectiveness of educational intervention among the students. Data were analyzed using paired t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The overall response rates were improved significantly (P < 0.05) for post-intervention questionnaire compared to pre-intervention response. This indicates significance of effectiveness of an educational intervention for improving awareness of pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting among undergraduate students. Conclusion: The results of the present study demonstrate that an educational intervention can increase awareness of pharmacovigilance among medical students and they can incorporate this gained knowledge in clinical practice.