Pharmacovigilance: a study to evaluate knowledge, attitude, and practices of and impact of educational intervention among doctors in teaching hospital, in rural area of Jalna, India

Abstract

Background: According to WHO Pharmacovigilance is “The science and activities which are related to the detection, assessment, understanding, and the prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problems.” A majority of India’s population prefers government hospitals when they are in need of health care facilities. The patients also prefer other available free health care facilities. Hence, these hospitals can be a good source for generating an adverse drug reactions database. However, the Herculean task is to foster a culture of reporting among the doctors, especially among the junior doctors, as they are more closely associated with the patient care, hence the present study to assess awareness of pharmacovigilance among the doctors and to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention for improving awareness of pharmacovigilance among doctors in an Indian tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: A suitable self-administered knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) survey questionnaire was designed, based on previous studies. An interventional educational activity was organized and the impact of the educational Intervention was evaluated by again administering the similar questionnaire. The statistical analysis was carried for comparing the pre- and post-intervention. Results : It was seen that the KAP of pharmacovigilance among doctors is low. The results also showed that there was an improvement after the educational intervention. Conclusions: The KAP of pharmacovigilance is low among doctors and educational intervention can improve it.