A questionnaire-based knowledge, attitude and practice study to determine the awareness of pharmacovigilance among the health care professionals in a tertiary care hospital of West Bengal

Background: Pharmacovigilance programs have been introduced to keep an eye on adverse drug reactions and safe use of drugs. All Healthcare professionals (HCPs) should report each and every adverse events which they come across. Pharmacovigilance programme of India is running actively since 2010 but India contributes only 2% of Adverse drug reactions (ADR’s) reported worldwide. There is need to monitor awareness of HCP’s about pharmacovigilance to achieve the goals. Such studies from peripheries of Eastern India are lacking. The aim of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice and overall awareness among HCP’s about pharmacovigilance and to understand actual barriers of ADR reporting.Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was done in Burdwan Medical College and Hospital. Ninety-nine HCP’s completed the pre-designed questionnaire. There were 15 questions to assess the awareness and cause(s) of underreporting. Data were analysed using appropriate statistical software.Results: We analysed data of 67 doctors and 32 nurses. We found, 67.2% doctors and 59.4% nurses knew definition of pharmacovigilance. About half HCP’s had knowledge about existing pharmacovigilance committee in our hospital. Almost all HCP’s felt ADR reporting is necessary. Surprisingly 88.1% doctors and 46.9% nurses experienced ADR at least once but 25.4% and 3.1% reported them respectively. For knowledge and practice related questions, correct responses were significantly higher for doctors. Most common discouraging factors regarding ADR reporting were, didn’t know how to report (52.5%) where to report (41.4%).Conclusions: Attitude of HCP’s towards pharmacovigilance activities was appreciable and combining it with periodic sensitizing programs, and training sessions will increase the knowledge, clear doubts about ADR reporting and improve the awareness about pharmacovigilance.