Publication:

Effect of educational interventions on pharmacovigilance awareness among M.B.B.S. internee’s in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) has played a major role in detection of previously unobserved ADRs. In spite of setting up ADR monitoring centres, only 6-10% of all ADRs are reported which has been contributed to the lack of knowledge among healthcare professionals. This study was planned to address this aspect. To evaluate and compare the effect of educational intervention in enhancing the knowledge of MBBS internee’s regarding pharmacovigilance.

Methods A cross sectional, educational interventional observational study was conducted using two copies of a pretested validated questionnaire (pre & post CME) with 17 questions among 130 MBBS internees. They were subjected to a Continuous Medical Education on pharmacovigilance. A hand’s on training on ADR reporting was also conducted in which they were divided into 10 batches and  asked to fill a Central Drugs Standard Control Organization Adverse Drug Reporting form on the case scenario given to them and forms were analyzed.

Results Out of 130 internees, 114 (87.69%) and 98 (75.38%) had completely filled them. The overall awareness about pharmacovigilance increased from 62.50% to 82.25% (p< 0.0001). There was a statistically significant increase in mean value from 14.38 ± 0.3020 to 18.92 ± 0.2860 (p< 0.0001) on analyzing the knowledge scores. 90% of ADR forms revealed substantial errors, which were explained to the participants.

Conclusions This study clearly shows that early sensitization through educational interventions at internship phase of M.B.B.S. will increase the number of ADRs being reported in our country.