An Evaluation of Knowledge and Perception of Pharmacy Students toward Pharmacovigilance and Adverse Drug Event Reporting

Abstract

To evaluate the knowledge and perception about pharmacovigilance (PV) and adverse drug event (ADE) reporting among undergraduate pharmacy students. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the month of August 2013 using a questionnaire form given to B. Pharmacy students of Vth semester onwards including five different pharmacy colleges of Anand district in Gujarat. Before starting the study, approval from Institutional Ethics Committee was taken. Participants were explained properly about the study and confidentiality was maintained at all levels. A total of 300 filled forms were collected from the participants. Of these 142 (47%) were from Vth semester, remaining were from VIIth semester. One hundred and thirty-six students (45%) were aware of PV. One hundred and twenty-four students (41%) replied that pharmacist is qualified to report ADEs. One hundred seventy-six students (59%) replied that all types of ADEs should be reported. Two hundred and four students (68%) advocated compulsory ADE reporting. Two hundred and eighty-six students (95%) said that ADE reporting is either very important or important. Only 58 students (19%) knew about PV program of India. Pharmacists can play a crucial role in both ADE reporting and PV activities. The knowledge about PV and ADE reporting is found quite low among pharmacy students in our study. Hence, they need to be well trained on how to recognize, prevent, and report ADE as they are future pharmacy practitioners.