Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance among undergraduate medical students in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Eastern India: A questionnaire-based study

Abstract

Background: Despite the untiring efforts of pharmacovigilance (PV) program in safeguarding public health by ensuring patient safety nationwide, underreporting is still much prevalent. Active participation of all health-care professionals in the PV program can improve the adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting. Aim and Objective: The present study tried to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAPs) of medical students about PV in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Eastern India. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based observational study was carried out on undergraduate medical students in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Eastern India. A structured, pretested questionnaire assessing KAPs of the respondents, adapted from extensive literature review was administered to each student who was given 30 min to fill the questionnaire. Responses were analyzed. Results: A total of 247 questionnaires were assessed. Improved responses were observed in final year students as compared to the second and prefinal years. However, awareness pertaining to ADR reporting system in India and scales involved in causality was less among students. Awareness regarding necessity of ADR reporting was lacking in 50% of respondents. The practice of PV and reporting ADRs was assessed, which revealed though many came across ADRs, very few reported the same as majority did not knew how to report ADRs to the national program. Conclusion: The various domain components of the study necessitate the need of infusing the reporting culture by introducing the concept of medication safety in early curriculum of therapeutics in medical undergraduates. The barriers to reporting the ADRs may be lack of training and awareness of this issue such as where to report and whom to report and who to report.