An evaluation of knowledge, attitude and perception about adverse drug reactions and pharmacovigilance among intern doctors in a medical college teaching hospital of Sangli

Abstract

Background: Underreporting of various adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by consultants is a common incurable problem. National pharmacovigilance program is one of the ongoing programs to monitor the adverse drug reactions & reporting at the earliest to the nearby AMCs. As medical interns are budding doctors, the focus of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and perception about ADRs and pharmacovigilance in them.Methods: A cross section questionnaire-based study was conducted after approval by our institutional ethics committee pretested and validated questions consisting of 20 questions (knowledge, attitude, perception) were administrated to medical interns. The filled questionnaires were collected and analysed.Results: In our study, medical interns have fair enough idea about ADR and pharmacovigilance. In knowledge domain they were aware of term ADRs (100%), pharmacovigilance (72.6%). In attitude domain majority of interns (80.6%) known availability of ADR forms, compulsory of pharmacovigilance unit (90.3%). In perception domain very poor response from interns, not even a single intern had reported any ADR filled form and they don’t know meaning of re-challenge and de-challenge, very few interns (9.7%) know how to manage the ADRs in emergency conditions.Conclusions: Under reporting problem can be improved by doing more teaching activities at undergraduate level and intern’s level including various workshops, CMEs, problem-based teaching of adverse reactions in their curriculum. These exercises will improve their reporting frequency and sensitize the interns from the undergraduate days itself in their upcoming clinical practice in community.

Assessment of pharmacovigilance activities among pharmacist interns in Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

“…Also, a study conducted in India identified shallow awareness of pharmacovigilance programs among doctors [16,17]. Intern doctors, too, had lower knowledge of pharmacovigilance compared to the findings in this study, as reported by [10,11,18]. In this study, most participants believe that newly introduced drugs should be reported.…”

“…As a result, pharmacovigilance practices, including identifying and reporting ADRs, are now anticipated by intern pharmacists in training. Pharmacists and interns are easily accessible, work for long hours, and interact with numerous patients and thus are in an ideal position to undertake pharmacovigilance and identify and report adverse drug reactions (ADRs) [10]. Participation in pharmacovigilance exercises mostly depends on the pharmacist intern's understanding of what PV includes and the necessity of engaging in such activities.…”