Effectiveness of pharmacovigilance: multifaceted educational intervention related to the knowledge, skills and attitudes of multidisciplinary hospital staff

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:Most educational interventions in pharmacovigilance are designed to encourage physicians to report adverse drug reactions. However, multidisciplinary teams may play an important role in reporting drug-related problems. This study assessed the impact of a multifaceted educational intervention in pharmacovigilance on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of hospital professionals.METHOD:This prospective, open-label, non-randomized study was performed in a medium-complexity hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. The intervention involved four activities: 1) an interactive lecture, 2) a practical class, 3) a pre-post questionnaire administered to professionals on a multidisciplinary team, and 4) educational material. The intervention’s impact on the professionals’ knowledge and skills was assessed using the World Health Organization’s definitions. The intervention’s effect on the professionals’ attitudes was analysed by the prevalence of adverse drug event reports (adverse drug reactions, medication errors, therapeutic failure and drug quality deviations) and the relevance (seriousness and expectancy) of the events.RESULTS:One hundred seventy-three professionals were enrolled. A 70-fold increase in the number of adverse drug event reports was observed during the 12 months post-intervention. The intervention improved the professionals’ form-completion skills (p<0.0001) and their knowledge of pharmacovigilance (p<0.0001). The intervention also contributed to detecting serious drug-induced events. The nursing staff reported medication errors, and pharmacists and physiotherapists recognized serious adverse drug reactions. Physicians communicated suspicions of therapeutic failure.CONCLUSIONS:A multidisciplinary approach to drug-safety assessments contributes to identifying new, relevant drug-related problems and improving the rate of adverse drug event reporting. This strategy may therefore be applied to improve risk communication in hospitals.

Impact of an educational intervention on knowledge and attitude regarding pharmacovigilance among health professionals working on cancer hospital attached to a regional pharmacovigilance center

“…These suggestions made by participants were almost similar to other studies in different hospitals in the world [25,30,38]. These suggestions were almost similar to other studies conducted in other countries which show that educational interventions and other activities help to encourage ADR reporting increase awareness to ADRs and then increase the reporting rates of ADRs [20,21,25,30,38,[43][44][45]. Drug and Therapeutics Committee (DTC) also plays an active leading role in the advancement of medicine safety and strengthening PV centers at the hospital [46].…”

The Efficiency of Multi-Faceted Educational Intervention on Knowledge, Perceived Behavior, and Practice Skills towards Pharmacovigilance among Undergraduate Pharmacy Students of India

“…Frequently, the pharmacist is in a unique position and plays more essential roles that include many pharmaceutical care aspects, such as evading medication errors and ADRs, promoting better Quality of Life (QoL), financial outcomes, and patient wellbeing. Varallo FR et al, study indicated that using MEIs with multidisciplinary teams including pharmacists for pharmacovigilance revealed a remarkable rise exceeding 100% in the absolute number of reports of drug-induced issues, increase in the prevalence of medication error reporting and increased the relevance of ADE reports [33]. It highlighted the importance of adopting a multidisciplinary perspective of approach for the importance of pharmacovigilance in adding to patient safety.…”

Pharmacovigilance in perspective: drug withdrawals, data mining and policy implications

“…The results showed that the educational intervention was successful in the understanding of PV concepts, and improving skills to effectively complete reports related to ADRs. Directly after the educational intervention, the number of reports increased; however, four months after the educational intervention the number decreased, which implies that the education has to be continuous or periodic to keep the motivation among healthcare practitioners toward reporting ADRs 65 .…”