
Pharmacovigilance: The Extent of the Awareness Among the Final Year Students, Interns and Postgraduates (PGs) in a Government Teaching Hospital
1248-1253
Introduction: Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) are encountered commonly in the daily practice. In addition to the obvious morbidity and the mortality which are caused by them, they also cause an economic burden on the health care system. Adverse drug reactions are preventable if the healthcare professional pays close attention to the details of the adverse effects, following a drug administration. An awareness about ADRs can decrease the irrational use of an inappropriate pharmacy. Hence, there is an urgent need to create an awareness among the prescribers (especially junior doctors) about the ADR monitoring.
Objective: The present study was undertaken to assess the awareness, knowledge and the methods of application of pharmacovigilance among the final year MBBS students, interns and post graduates (preclinical, paraclinical and clinical subjects) in a government teaching hospital.
Materials and Methods: A questionnaire which was designed, based on the precedence which was set by previous studies, was standardized and administered to 300 final year students, interns and postgraduates of MMCRI, Mysore. The questionnaire comprised of 25 questions (awareness-5, knowledge-8 and methods of application-12) and each question had only one correct answer. The respondents were graded into 3 categories-poor, unsatisfactory and satisfactory, based on their individual scores. The data was then analyzed by using the contingency coefficient analysis, descriptive statistics and one way ANOVA and the product moment correlation technique was applied for the data analysis by using SPSS for Windows (version 16).
Results: A total of 210 questionnaires were statistically analyzed. It was found that the awareness, knowledge and the methods of application of pharmacovigilance was lesser in the students, as compared to the interns and the postgraduates. The methods of application in the PGs and the interns were considerably higher, probably due to their clinical exposure. It was also observed that higher was the awareness, more was the knowledge and better were the methods of application. They are positively related with a significant correlation coefficient.
Conclusion: The study suggested that it was imperative to include pharmacovigilance in the under graduate training programme, and that the interns and the post graduates should be sensitized to the ADR reporting during their training period. Importance also had to be given to translational pharmacovigilance, to encourage the dissemination of the information which was required, to improve the prescription of the drugs.