Comparison of Knowledge Regarding Pharmacovigilance among Fourth and Final Year Medical Students in a medical college of Lahore

Background: Information collected during the pre-marketing phase of drug development is incomplete with regards to possible adverse reactions because by the time of authorization, exposure of less than five thousand human subjects to the drug allows only the more common adverse drug reactions to be detected. This can be detected once the drug is in the market for wide use by the healthcare professionals, through post marketing surveillance phase IV clinical trial and pharmacovigilance practice. Aim: To assess and compare fourth and final year medical students' knowledge and awareness with respect to Pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction reporting. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive epidemiological, questionnaire based study was carried out at private medical college in Lahore. A total of 150 M.B., B.S students were randomly selected from both fourth and final year classes, 75 from each class. Results: The mean knowledge score of fourth year students was calculated as 6.09 +/- 2.558 and that for final year was 6.40 +/- 1.980. The p-value was 0.41. There was no significant difference in the mean score between the two groups of classes for knowledge. Conclusion: The students were deficient in adequate knowledge towards pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction reporting. Efforts must be directed towards increasing the knowledge of the future practitioners.