Журнал фармаконадзора

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Assessment of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice among the Medical and Pharmacy Students towards Pharmacovigilance and Adverse Drug Reactions in Abbottabad, Pakistan

Ahmad Raza and Habila Jamal

Introduction: Pharmacovigilance plays a significant role in the rational use of medicines by providing information about adverse drug reactions (ADRs). This study is mainly aimed at evaluating and assessing the knowledge, attitude and practice towards pharmacovigilance and ADR’s amongst Pakistani pharmacy and medical students in various pharmacy and medical colleges in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted using KAP questionnaire. The questionnaire comprise of three portions, consisted of a total of 21 questions, 13 (Qs: 1-13) were related to the “knowledge”, 6 (Qs: 14-19) were related to “attitude” and the remaining 2 (Qs: 13-15, 19-20) were related to the “practice” aspects.

Results: The total 200 pharmacy and medical students provided their response. More than half of them (n = 103, 51.5%) were females and 48.5% (n = 97) were males. Overall the pharmacy students had a high score (30.50) as compared to the medical students (27.97). Majority of the respondents (n = 189, 94.5%) considered reporting ADR should be made compulsory, also most respondents (n = 168, 84%) accepts reporting ADR as their professional responsibility. Majority of the respondents (n = 128, 64%) were of opinion that reporting is a combined duty of doctors, pharmacists and nurses.

Conclusion: As both, pharmacy and medical students showed low KAP scores which indicate that there is a need for regular education and training of the students regarding pharmacovigilance and ADR management.