Knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance among private healthcare professionals of Rajkot city.

ABSTRACT

Background: Spontaneous reporting is an important tool in pharmacovigilance. However, its success depends on cooperative and motivated prescribers. In order to improve the reporting rate, it is essential to improve the Knowledge, Attitude and the Practices (KAP) of the healthcare professionals with regards to the ADR reporting and the pharmacovigilance. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of pharmacovigilance among private prescribers of Rajkot city. Methods: It was a prospective questionnaire based survey type of study which was carried out among the private practitioners of Rajkot city. A questionnaire which was suitable for assessing the basic Knowledge, Attitude and the Practice (KAP) of pharmacovigilance was designed and distributed among the private doctors and filled up forms collected back and analyzed by microsoft excel 2007. Results: Out of 600 distributed forms 332 forms were received back, reflecting a response rate of 55.33%. 13.86% doctors didn’t know about the term pharmacovigilance. 76.80% doctors experienced ADR during their clinical practices. 17.77% doctors maintain the record for patient safety and medico legal aspect.13.25% doctors reported ADR at different places. Lack of knowledge and awareness and medico legal problems were common reasons for under reporting of ADR.78.30% doctors agreed to keep ADR monitoring mandatory. Preferred methods for reporting ADR were electronic media and personal communication. Conclusions: There was a great need to create awareness among the private doctors to improve the reporting of ADRs. Even though ADR reporting make compulsory by doctors unless there is no strict government rules and regulation success of pharmacovigilance programme is questionable.