Abstract
BackgroundSpontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is a method of monitoring the safety of drugs and is the basic strategy for the post-marketing surveillance of the suspected drugs. Despite its importance, there is very little reporting of ADRs by healthcare professionals. The present study has evaluated the knowledge, attitude and practices of health care professionals (HCPs) regarding pharmacovigilance activities in Lahore, Pakistan.MethodsA cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was employed, and a convenience sampling was opted to collect the data among physicians, pharmacists and nurses working in tertiary care public hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan from September 2018 to January 2019.ResultsOf the 384 questionnaires distributed, 346 health care professionals responded to the questionnaire (90.10% response rate). Most participants had good knowledge about ADR reporting, but pharmacist had comparatively better knowledge than other HCPs regarding ADR (89.18%) pharmacovigilance system (81.08%), its centres (72.97%) and function (91.89%). Most of the participants exhibited positive attitude regarding ADR reporting, such as 49.1% of physicians (P < 0.05), 70.2% pharmacists and 76.1% nurses showed a positive attitude that they are the most important HCPs to report an ADR. About 64.3% of physicians (P < 0.05) emphasized that consulting other colleagues is important before reporting an ADR. Of all, 77.7% physicians, 75.7% pharmacists and 68% of nurses had positive attitude that ADR reporting is a professional obligation and 67.6% of the pharmacists stated that they have reported ADRs in their workplace and 77.2% nurses have verbally reported ADRs to the concerned personnel or department.ConclusionAmong all HCPs, pharmacists had better knowledge about ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance. All HCPs had positive attitude and inclination towards ADR reporting. The discrepancies were observed in the practices related to ADR reporting, whereas most of the participants including physicians and nurses did not report any ADR. Based on the above, strategies are needed to educate, train, and empower the HCPs in the domain of pharmacovigilance.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an adverse drug reaction (ADR) as, “a response which is noxious and unintended, and which occurs at doses normally used in humans for the prophylaxis, diagnosis, or Hussain et al J of Pharm Policy and Pract (2021) 14:5 therapy of disease, or for the modification of physiological function [1]
The current study has focused on health care professionals (HCPs) including physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, who were working in tertiary care hospitals of Lahore regarding their knowledge, attitude, and practices about pharmacovigilance
The current study explored the attitudes of all HCPs towards pharmacovigilance activities and showed that overall, all HCPs had a positive attitude towards pharmacovigilance activities in general and ADRs reporting in particular
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an adverse drug reaction (ADR) as, “a response which is noxious and unintended, and which occurs at doses normally used in humans for the prophylaxis, diagnosis, or Hussain et al J of Pharm Policy and Pract (2021) 14:5 therapy of disease, or for the modification of physiological function [1]. Spontaneous or voluntary reporting of ADRs refers to the passive reporting of ADRs by healthcare professionals (HCPs) or patients and is the basic strategy for the post-marketing surveillance of the suspected drugs [3]. These spontaneous reporting systems are established to detect ADRs efficiently and inexpensively and the success of these systems depends on the quality of reports submitted by HCPs [3, 4]. ADR reporting through voluntary submission has started in the early sixties in many western countries and the United Kingdom was the first country to start this program in 1964 This enabled physicians and pharmacists to report ADRs, which served as a tool for the identification of new or suspected ADRs [5]. The present study has evaluated the knowledge, attitude and practices of health care professionals (HCPs) regarding pharmacovigilance activities in Lahore, Pakistan
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