Knowledge and Perception of Pharmacy Practice Students on Causality Assessment of Adverse Drug Reactions

Pharmacy Practice students play an important role in identifying and reporting Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs). Prior studies focused on knowledge of pharmacy students on reporting ADRs. There are no studies conducted to assess the knowledge and understand the perception of students on causality assessment of ADRs. A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2019 to April 2020 among the Pharmacy Practice students in various pharmacy colleges across India. Consent form was obtained before filling the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed through social media applications and staff of respective colleges. Descriptive analysis was performed to calculate frequencies and percentages of categorical variables. A total of 723 students, 608 responses were received from 30 pharmacy colleges across India. The mean age (SD) of participants was 22.95 (1.61) years. The majority of responses were received from females (70.39). The majority of participants (90.78%) were aware of various causality assessment scales. More than half (58.55%) strongly agreed that there is a need for hands on training on causality assessment of ADRs at college level. Around 80% of the participants strongly agreed that clinical pharmacist is necessary in the healthcare team for causality assessment of ADRs. The knowledge of students on causality assessment of ADRs was found satisfactory. Students believed that having regular workshop on causality assessment of ADRs may help improve their skills in identifying the suspected medications that caused ADRs and helps in better patient care.