A non-randomized interventional study to promote the knowledge, attitude and practices of community pharmacists towards pharmacovigilance

Abstract

Pharmacovigilance promotes the safe and effective use of medicines and thereby optimizes the treatment quality. However, lack of awareness among community pharmacists towards pharmacovigilance decreases the proportion of adverse drug reactions reported and impairs the signal detection process. Hence this study was designed to assess and promote the awareness and attitude of community pharmacists towards pharmacovigilance. This educational interventional study was carried out with 102 community pharmacists across Chennai. A pre-validated three domain-containing questionnaire, 20 items was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice before and after the educational intervention. Knowledge, attitude and practices of community pharmacists towards pharmacovigilance was significantly increased after the educational intervention (P<0.05, 95%CI). Median difference in an overall score of knowledge and practice was observed to be 4 and 4.5, respectively. Though the frequency of ADR reporting was not found to be greatly increased in our study, mass educational programs with adequate sampling intervals are needed to strengthen the signal generation process.