Evaluation of an educational intervention on physicians’ knowledge about adverse drug reaction reporting system

The aim of the study was to develop and evaluate an educational intervention for practicing physicians for reporting of adverse drug reactions.

Reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by healthcare professionals is paramount for improving medicine safety. However, the under-reporting of ADR by physicians is a global problem. A 1-day workshop (comprising a lecture and an information pamphlet) on awareness about ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance system was organized. A pre-tested questionnaire with four questions about ADR reporting and eight on pharmacovigilance system was filled in by the participants before and after the workshop. Descriptive statistics was used for the analysis of demographics as mean and percentage. A paired sample t-test was employed to evaluate the responses before and after the intervention regarding knowledge about ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance system.

There was no significant difference in the pre-post evaluation of knowledge about ADR reporting; however, a significant difference was found in the pre-post evaluation of participant’s knowledge regarding pharmacovigilance system.

The knowledge about the pharmacovigilance system improved after the intervention. Further studies are required on a larger scale and involving other healthcare professionals to promote a better healthcare system.