Oct-Dec, 2011 - Indian Journal of Pharmacy Practice

Amrita P - Scenario of Pharmacovigilance and ADR Reporting among Pharmacists in Delhireporting, like – informing patients about possible sideeffects, noticing ADRs in patients, getting feedback ofdiscomfort experienced by patient after drug treatment,reporting/non-reporting of observed ADR, existence of setprocedure of reporting ADR in their organization.Questions on attitude regarding pharmacovigilance helped toknow their opinion on essentiality of ADR monitoring andcontinuing education programs and possible reasons for nonreportingof an encountered ADR viz. ADR is well known,not sure about the drug causing ADR. Their perceptionregarding inclusion of pharmacovigilance in pharmacycurriculum was probed.Subjects: The study included those pharmacists who havedirect contact either with patients or the physicians viz.community pharmacists (C.P), hospital pharmacists (H.P)and the medical representatives (M.R). The questionnairewas distributed to 230 pharmacists. Out of these, 148pharmacists responded by returning the duly completedquestionnaire. The community pharmacists were from thevarious medical shops of Delhi. The hospital pharmacistswere working in following government or private sectorhospitals/dispensaries.Govt. sector hospitals:1. All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Research(10.64%).2. Guru Gobind Singh Govt. Hospital (10.64%).3. Safdarjung Hospital (12.77%).4. Lady Hardinge Medical College and Hospital (10.64%).5. Charak Palika Hospital (10.64%).6.Primary Health Centre, Mehrauli (2.13%).7. Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya Hospital (8.51%).8.Kalavati Saran Children's Hospital (10.64%).Private sector hospitals:1.G.M Modi hospital (2.13%).2. Sitaram Bhartia hospital (6.38%).3. Rockland hospital (2.13%).4. Batra Hospital and Medical Research Centre (2.13%)Dispensaries:1. Delhi Govt. Dispensary, Ber Sarai (4.26%).2. C.G.H.S Dispensary, R. K. Puram (6.38%).The medical representatives were serving in followingpharmaceutical organizations:- Astra Zeneca, SolvateLaboratories, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Biomate India,Novo Nordisk, Sun Pharma, Ipca Laboratories, Wockhardt,Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, Orange Laboratories,Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories,Zuventus, Mohrish Pharmaceuticals, Universal Medicare,Franco-Indian Pharmaceuticals, Alkem Laboratories, PfizerIndia, Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals, AimilPharmaceuticals, Cipla Pharmaceuticals, Apex laboratories,Intas Pharmaceuticals, Mark Medicines, Aventis Pharma,Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Unichemlaboratories, Perron Pharmaceuticals, WingsPharmaceuticals, Samarth Life Sciences and PiramalHealthcare.RESULT AND DISCUSSIONOut of 230 questionnaires that were distributed, 148 werefilled, giving a response rate of 64.35%. Table 1 describes thedemographic distribution of the pharmacists. Profession wiseclassification shows that 31.76% were hospital pharmacists,26.35% were community pharmacists and 41.89% weremedical representatives (Fig 1).Fig. 1: Profession wise participation of pharmacistsKnowledge of pharmacists:Out of the total (148) pharmacists, 60 (40.54%) reported thatthey are aware of the term pharmacovigilance but only 41(27.70%) pharmacists knew the term ADR indicating that outof 60 pharmacists who said they knew the termpharmacovigilance, 19 pharmacists have possibly faked thatthey had knowledge of pharmacovigilance. Fifty nine(39.86%) pharmacists did not know the termpharmacovigilance and 29 (19.59%) pharmacists did notrespond indicating that total 59+29+19 =107 (72.30%)pharmacists did not know the term pharmacovigilance. Fortynine (33.11%) pharmacists did not understand the meaning ofADR and 58 (39.19%) pharmacists did not respond. ThusIndian Journal of Pharmacy Practice Volume 4 Issue 4 Oct - Dec, 2011 31