Exploring Postgraduate Medical Student’s Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Towards Monitoring and Reporting of Adverse Drug Reactions in Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, Gujarat: A Cross-sectional Study

• Dr.Kavita Dineshbhai Dhanani,*  
• Dr. Shilpa P Jadav,  
• Dr.Ullas Balvantrai Gajera

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The main aim of Pharmacovigilance is to promote the safe and effective use of drugs, especially when it comes to new drugs. Postgraduate medical students are an important group of healthcare professionals who play a crucial role in the proper use of drugs. They are responsible for prescribing, administering, and monitoring drugs in patients, and their knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards pharmacovigilance are essential for the safe and effective use of drugs. AIM: The study aimed to evaluate the basic knowledge, attitudes, and practices of postgraduate medical students regarding Pharmacovigilance. METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional study was conducted by asking the participants to answer pre-validated pre-formed Google form questionnaire which was sent via electronic device. The questionnaire consists of three sections: knowledge, attitude, and practice. All three sections have 10 multiple-choice questions each. Each true answer to a question from the knowledge section will get 1 mark. Attitude and practice questions were Likert-based questions. The recorded data was enrolled into Microsoft Excel and analysed using SPSS 26. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics. Frequencies and percentages were used to represent responses to the questions. RESULTS: A total of 105 responses were recorded. Overall knowledge of monitoring and reporting of ADRs in postgraduate medical students is 53.04% with the poorest in question “Example of Type A ADRs” which is 35.20%. 51.40% of participants have an attitude to participate in the training of ADR reporting. 64.80% of participants routinely provide counselling to patients on the potential side effects of medications. CONCLUSIONS: Lack of motivation, training toward ADR reporting and Time constraints discourage PGs from reporting. Pharmacovigilance as a part of all PG branch curriculm can increase the number of adverse events reporting. Ensuring a better safety profile for drugs can be done only through pharmacovigilance.

Keywords

Knowledge, attitude and practices, postgraduate medical student’s, adverse drug reactions