Abstract

Responses of Healthcare Professionals to a Standard Self-Administered Questionnaire on Pharmacovigilance and Adverse Drug Reactions in South India

Background: Healthcare professionals play an integral role in the success of safety surveillance of drugs, thereby reducing the drug toxicity, a major limitation in providing health care to patients at a global level, which affects patient’s recovery as well as the economy of health care. Objectives: The current cross sectional survey of six months duration was performed in a tertiary hospital of south India to assess the knowledge, opinions and perception of healthcare professionals towards pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Methods: The purpose and need of study was explained to all healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses and pharmacists) to whom a standard 25 inventories (12 knowledge; and 13 opinion and perception based) open-ended questionnaire in English language was administered. All the responses were entered in to Microsoft Excel sheet and analyzed; statistically significant level was set at <0.05 with a confidence interval of 95%. Results: Out of 120 healthcare professionals 66.67% were physicians, 26.67% were nurses and 6.66% were pharmacists. The study observed equal distribution of gender, in which 35.83% were between age group of 21-30 years, mean age was 30 years. The very robust findings of our study are the intra professional responses towards knowledge, opinion and perception on pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions found deprived in nurses in comparison to pharmacist and doctors. Conclusion: In conclusion, the study re-accentuates regular and periodic sensitization and orientation of healthcare professionals on pharmacovigilance would bring deep-seated improvement in adverse drug reactions reporting rate.