Transformative education: Enhancing pharmacovigilance awareness among healthcare professionals through sensitization initiatives.

BACKGROUND

Pharmacovigilance plays a vital role in patient safety by identifying, assessing, and preventing adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Despite its importance, pharmacovigilance awareness among healthcare professionals often remains limited, leading to underreporting of adverse drug reactions and compromising patient safety. Educational interventions offer a potential solution to enhance pharmacovigilance knowledge and a reporting practice.

AIMS

To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention in improving knowledge and ADR reporting behaviours among healthcare professionals.

METHODS AND MATERIAL

A questionnaire-based pre- and post-intervention design was used, involving health care providers. This study was conducted in three sessions on different dates, with a stipulated time of 2 hour at a tertiary care hospital. Participants attended 2-hour educational session about awareness of pharmacovigilance knowledge, attitude, and practices. A 20-items questionnaire was used to assess about pharmacovigilance awareness before and after educational intervention.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Data were analysed using IBM SPSS 27 version software, employing a paired -test to measure changes in scores.

RESULTS

Post-intervention participants had a statistically significant increase in pharmacovigilance knowledge, improved attitude towards ADR reporting, and greater confidence in reporting practices. However, limitations such as the lack of a control group and short follow-up duration suggest that further research is needed to confirm long-term impacts.

CONCLUSIONS

Educational intervention is effective in enhancing Pharmacovigilance awareness among health care providers. Further studies should include a control group and longer follow-up to better understand the sustained impact of such an intervention. Integrated regular pharmacovigilance training within healthcare institutions and simplifying ADR reporting can further improve medication safety and patient outcomes.