Assessment on knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance among the healthcare professionals in a tertiary hospital of Kathmandu

Abstract

Pharmacovigilance (PV) is the science and activities related to the detection, assessment, understandingand prevention of adverse effects. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) have an important role in reportingAdverse Drug Reaction (ADR) cases. However under-reporting has been a major challenge in PV. Hence, weassessed the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of HCPs about PV in a tertiary hospital of Kathmandu. Across-sectional study was conducted using pretested questionnaire consisting of 21 closed ended questions(twelve on knowledge, five on attitude, four on practice and one open ended question to know the causesof under-reporting. Out of 520 HCPs, 448 (207 doctors and 241 nurses) participated in the study with theresponse rate of 86.2%. The mean KAP score for doctors was 10.38 ± 2.68 and 9.60 ± 2.32 for nurses. Themajor barriers for under-reporting were identified as the difficulty in deciding if it’s an ADR and lack oftime to report ADRs. No significant correlation between knowledge and attitude of the HCPs was found(r=0, n=448, p< 0.01). However, there was a weak positive correlation between knowledge and practice (r=
0.05, n=448, p< 0.01) and also for attitude and practice (r= 0.09, n=448, p< 0.01). Hence, the HCPs had poorknowledge and practice but positive attitude towards PV. It is therefore strongly recommended to have animmediate educational intervention among the HCPs to improve the spontaneous ADR reporting

Keywords : Adverse drug reaction,attitude, knowledge, Nepal,pharmacovigilance, practice