Adverse Drug Reaction reporting among medical and dental practitioners: a KAP study

Background & Objectives: Despite launch of the pharmacovigilance programme in India in 2003, even today adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting is limited. There is a need to plan relevant and need based awareness programmes to improve the same. Hence, this study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices among the medical and dental doctors regarding ADR reporting. Methods: A cross sectional interview based study among 151 doctors belonging to medical and dental fraternity was conducted to assess their knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) with respect to ADR reporting using a pre-tested semi-structured 33-item questionnaire. The findings were analysed using SPSS version 20. Results: It was observed that 87 (57.6%) of study subjects had <50% knowledge scores but favourable attitude scores (>70%) were observed in 113 (74.8%) of study subjects. Practices of ADR reporting needed significant improvement. Lack of report forms was most common reason 121 (80.1%) for lack of reporting. Conclusion: This study demonstrated a significant unmet knowledge gap in a favourable attitudinal situation for ADR reporting. Hence there is a need to address this gap to translate favourable attitudes into scientific ADR reporting practices. It is a need of the hour to initiate educational interventional strategies among the study subjects regarding ADR and pharmacovigilance.