Evaluation of knowledge and awareness of adverse drug reaction reporting among patients visiting a tertiary care hospital in northern India

Abstract

Objective: Spontaneous voluntary reporting of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) is of paramount importance to the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India, as well as for the benefit of mankind. There has however been minimal and sporadic voluntary reporting of ADRs by the patients at the various ADR Monitoring Centres (AMCs) across Northern India. Knowledge, perception, attitude, and awareness of patients are determinants of reporting practices. This questionnaire based study aims to evaluating these indicators in a tertiary care hospital and determines methods to improve existing reporting practices. This is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based Materials and Methods: observational study carried out in a tertiary care hospital over a period of 2 months. The questionnaires were filled by patients attending the OPD and returned to us. Data obtained from filled questionnaires were thereby analyzed. Results: While 74.4% respondents were aware that medicines can cause side effects, only 51.7% patients aptly feel the urgent need to report an ADR to a physician and receive prompt treatment. A majority of the respondents felt that it was the duty of the attending physician to warn the patients about the potential ADRs of medications while prescribing them, while newspaper reports and awareness campaigns could also be conducted to educate the community towards drug reactions and methods of reporting them to health care associates and receiving prompt treatment. Conclusion: The study indicates that although the respondents have an average knowledge and positive attitude towards ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance, there remains a lack of awareness and poor ADR reporting practices. Efforts are therefore required to enhance awareness and attitude towards pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting.