Impact of educational intervention on health-care professional's behaviors toward adverse drug reactions reporting - A study of tribal belt of central India

Abstract

Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are one of the most significant causes of mortality; hence, it must be reported. Very few studies were done, including educational intervention and even fewer in a tribal area of world, especially in India. Aims and Objectives: We planned this study to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of pharmacovigilance (PVG) and ADR reporting of health-care professionals (HCPs) of tertiary care hospital of the central tribal belt in India before and after an educational intervention. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive KAP pre- and post-questionnaire based study was conducted on a total of 164 participants, including doctors and nurses working in Tertiary Care Hospital, Ratlam, India. A predesigned structured questionnaire with multiple-choice questions was used for pre-test and post-test along with the intermediate educational session. Furthermore, the practice of ADR reporting was assessed over a month’s time. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Fisher’s exact test was done to compare the difference in correctness for each question. Results: In the pre-test, about 73.77% of the doctors and 11.65% of the nurses knew what is PVG, while the post-test response rocketed to 100% in doctors and 98.06 % in nurses (P < 0.001). The overall knowledge and attitude of doctors and nurses were low initially and it improved significantly (P < 0.001) after the educational intervention. Furthermore, ADRs reported increased from 0 to 10 (P < 0.001) during the follow-up practice of 1 month of the study. Conclusions: Educational intervention is a reinforcement tool to improve the KAP of the ADR reporting of HCPs. Furthermore, more awareness and cooperation by the HCPs are required to deal with the prevalent under-reporting of the ADRs in tribal region of India.