Factors Influencing Awareness of Drug Store Personnel about Pharmacovigilance

Abstract

Pharmacovigilance is an essential process when dealing with the medicines. It is one of the basic roles of community pharmacist. This role is not found in practice. Due to lacking this role, monitoring of adverse drug reactions and awareness to report them is missed in the society. However, no significant data has been published to exhibit the role of community pharmacists in Pharmacovigilance. This study was aimed to help in stowing the pharmacist role, in community Pharmacovigilance of Pakistan, to give awareness not only to community pharmacists but to regulatory authorities to establish policies regarding ADRs. A cross-sectional study was conducted through a pre-validated questionnaire. This study was conducted in 16 Districts of Sindh Province of Pakistan. 368 pharmacies/ medical stores responded to the self administered questionnaire. The results showed dependence of Awareness to the Pharmacovigilance upon Professional Status, Education of Participants and Experience of study population in pharmacies/ medical stores.