Abstract

Assessment of Family Physicians’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice towards Pharmacovigilance and Spontaneous Adverse Drug Reactions Reporting during COVID Pandemic

Purpose: Spontaneous Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) are reported by healthcare professionals and the issue of underreporting is an important problem in many countries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of family physicians working in the Uskudar district, about pharmacovigilance and ADRs reporting. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with 170 family physicians working in the family health centers of the Uskudar district in Istanbul. Data were collected with an online questionnaire by using Google forms. The questionnaire consisted of questions about participants’ demographics and a total of 21 questions about their knowledge, attitude, and practice about the ADRs reporting. Scoring was made as 0-3 correct answers were considered low, 4-6 medium, and 7-9 good. SPSS 22.0 statistical package was used for all statistical analyses. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results: The validated questionnaire was responded to by 74.2% of the participants. Only 24.4% of the participants got the highest knowledge score. The differences in knowledge scores were due to the variables such as education, age groups, duration of experience, and gender (p=0.013). The physicians with high scores and who had training on ADR reporting had significantly better attitudes on ADR reporting (p<0.0001). 46.5% of the physicians met with a situation that could be considered as an adverse effect but only 13.5% have performed reporting. Only one report was present during the COVID pandemic. The reason for not reporting ADR was mostly due to being unsure (63.8%). The majority of the participants (94.4%; n=118) requested training on ADR and pharmacovigilance. Conclusion: Pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting should be included more broadly both in the faculty education programs and also in post-graduate training programs.

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