Community pharmacists’ knowledge, perception and practice towards adverse drug reaction reporting and the factors influence on them in Jaffna district, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Introduction: Health care professionals are the prime source for spontaneous adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting. An increase in over-the-counter drugs and self-medication practice rapidly increase the risk of ADR incidents in community pharmacy setup. Objectives: To assesses the community pharmacists’ knowledge, perception and practice towards adverse drug reaction reporting and the influencing factors in Jaffna district. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study with self-administered questionnaire which consist of five parts. All registered community pharmacists in Jaffna district were included in the study. The level of knowledge and perception was determined by the marks obtained by the pharmacists. The chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were used to test the association of variables. Results: The response rate was 82.05% (N=64). Among the pharmacists, 40.6% had good knowledge on ADR reporting. Age (p=0.009) and work-experience (p=0.006) were statistically significant with knowledge. 75.0% of the pharmacists had good perception where, work-hours (p=0.040), work-experience (p=0.006) and work-position (p=0.013) were statistically significant association. Suspected and reported ADR in studied community pharmacists were 26.5% and 3.2% respectively. Prime reasons for not reporting ADRs were lack of patient complaints and doubt in the causality of a particular drug. 45.3% of the pharmacists were suggested that the frequent workshops would increase the ADR detection and reporting. Conclusions: Most of the pharmacists had poor knowledge and good perception but with very poor practice in ADR reporting. Junior pharmacists have more awareness in ADR reporting.