To study the Knowledge, Attitude and the Practice of Pharmacovigilance and ADR Reporting among the Healthcare Professionals in a Teaching Hospital In North India

Pharmacovigilance is related to the protection of public health and adverse drug reaction. While major advancements in the discipline of pharmacovigilance have taken place in the West, there is still a lot of room for improvement in India. However, with more clinical trials and clinical research activity being conducted there is an immense need to understand and implement pharmacovigilance. Now in India, pharmacovigilance (PV) has progressed from the situation as it was in past, but more awareness is required for improvement in reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) from the health care sectors. This knowledge, attitude and practice based study was conducted in a tertiary healthcare center in north India for the very first time to evaluate the healthcare professionals (HCPs) regarding their knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance. The study was conducted as an observational, non-interventional, questionnaire based study. The questions were divided into three types: 1. Knowledge among the health care professionals, on ADR reporting and Pharmacovigilance.2. Attitude regarding the same among the doctors and, 3. Practice i. e. in what manner do HCPs practice ADR reporting. The results were quite encouraging as maximum number of HCPs knew about the term pharmacovigilance and had a proactive attitude regarding the same yet the determination to report cases was not satisfactory and a better understanding of the importance of adverse event reporting was required.