Impact of an awareness program on adverse drug reaction reporting among community pharmacist

Background: In the modern system of medicine, treatment extensively depends on drugs. These drugs are sometimes known to cause adverse and unexpected side effects along with the required intended outcomes. In the community, adverse drug reactions cause loss of life, financial burden, and strain on already overworked healthcare teams, emerging as a major reason for concern towards Public Health. Objective: 1) To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacists towards adverse drug reaction reporting in Belagavi. 2) To assess the impact of «awareness program» on knowledge, attitude, and practice of community pharmacists-urban Belagavi. Method: Pharmacists were selected by simple random sampling method. Data was collected through a questionnaire following which pharmacists were given education on adverse drug reactions reporting with the help of leaflets. After a one-month same questionnaire was administered to assess the impact of education on adverse drug reaction reporting. The data was analyzed by using summary statistics and paired t-test. Outcome measure was gain in the scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice of adverse drug reactions reporting among community pharmacists. Results: Average knowledge score, attitude score, and practice score of the participants in pre-test was found to be 35 ±23.87, 56.9 ±20.79, and 26.67 ±17.747 respectively which was increased to 87.86 ±13.623, 66.9 ±10.68, and 72.5 ±23.784 respectively after effective education and providing them with the leaflet (intervention). There is a statistically significant difference between pre and post-test scores of the knowledge (p = 0.0001), attitude (p = 0.001), and practice (p = 0.0001). Knowledge level was significantly different by the community pharmacist’s education level (x2 = 4.093, p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Knowledge, attitude, and practice-based education program using leaflets were more effective on adverse drug reaction reporting and pharmacovigilance among community pharmacists. Approximately half of the pharmacists (38.33%, No. = 23) reported adverse drug reactions to regional National Pharmacovigilance Centers followed by an awareness program on adverse drug reaction reporting