Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pharmacovigilance among Health Care Professionals in Jos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Pharmacovigilance is a post-marketing surveillance of medicine use. Studies show that adverse drug reactions lead to acute hospitalizations. We noticed a decline in pharmacovigilance activities in our Centre, thus we aim to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance in Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH). Method: It was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study design using stratified sampling method in administering 183 questionnaires to Pharmacists, Doctors and Nurses in JUTH from May to June, 2019. Results were presented in proportions and a p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: The modal age of respondents was 26-35 years. On sources of information on pharmacovigilance, 39.9% got information from Journal texts, 3.3% through television/Radio set, 29.5% from combination of Journals, Television/Radio, Colleagues, Seminars and lectures. The overall good knowledge of pharmacovigilance was 62.3%, majority (84.7%) had good attitude while most (63.4%) had poor practice of Pharmacovigilance. There were statistical significant differences in knowledge, attitude and practice of Pharmacovigilance in relation to the three professions (p=0.000). Conclusion: This study shows that health care professionals in Jos university teaching hospital had good knowledge and attitude towards pharmacovigilance but had very poor practice.