Exploring the factors and barriers of healthcare professionals in tertiary care hospitals toward pharmacovigilance: a multicenter study from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Background

Spontaneous Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting is a cornerstone for a successful pharmacovigilance program as under-reporting of ADRs remains a major issue around the globe. The current study aimed to assess the knowledge attitude and practices of health care professionals regarding pharmacovigilance along with barriers and factors to encourage ADR reporting at tertiary care hospitals of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Methods

A questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey was conducted, using the convenience sampling method to collect the data from doctors, nurses, and pharmacists working in seven tertiary care hospitals from seven districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, between July 2019 and March 2020.

Results

During the study, a total of 830 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 669 were returned (response rate 80.6%). Overall, Healthcare professionals exhibited poor knowledge (79.5%) about ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance however, 73.5% of pharmacists were more knowledgeable as compared to 18.7% doctors and 13.8% nurses (p < .001). Moreover, poor reporting practices were displayed by 95.6% doctors, 94.4% nurses, 94.4 and 75.5% pharmacists (p < .001). However, the majority of healthcare professionals showed an overall positive attitude (94%) toward ADR reporting. The most frequently cited barriers were unavailability of reporting forms (92.5%), absence of a professional environment to discuss ADRs (82.5%), and lack of training (81.8%) whereas, most common factors to encourage ADR reporting were obligatory reporting (85.9%) and provision of ADR management guidelines and training (84.3%). A significant relation was found between the healthcare professionals and their professional status with the overall knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) scores (p < .001) whereas a medium, positive correlation was found between the knowledge and practice of pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting by the healthcare professionals (r = 0.321, n = 669, p < .001).

Conclusion

There is an overall lack of knowledge and poor reporting practices among health care professionals on ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance. Hence the study suggests that strategies should be devised by all the stakeholders to properly educate and train the healthcare professionals in this area to enhance overall patient safety and safe use of medicines.

Keywords:

• Knowledge
• attitude
• practice
• pharmacovigilance
• healthcare professionals
• adverse drug reaction
• medication safety

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This paper was not funded.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

MJHS and SAK: conceptualized the study. RK and MJHS: questionnaire development. MJHS, SMAA, TA, and MA: data collection. FUK, MJHS, JF, and QK: did the analysis. MJHS: drafted the preliminary manuscript. SS and SAK: revised and approved the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who cooperated and participated in the current study and recorded their responses. We would also like to thank Mr. Sagar Singh who has worked hard on this project during the data collection process.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethical approval

The current study received approval from the research and ethics committee at the department of pharmacy, Comsats University Islamabad-Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan with reference no. PHM.E.th/CF-M10/17-0043.