Pharmacovigilance awareness among interns in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Adverse drug reaction was one of the well-known causes of morbidity and mortality in both hospital and community settings and it is responsible for about five to twenty percentage of hospital admissions. The accomplishment of pharmacovigilance is alarmed with the dynamic involvement of medical professionals. To this purpose we studied the Pharmacovigilance awareness among the Interns (House-surgeons) posted in a tertiary care teaching hospital. This cross sectional study was conducted among interns (House-surgeons) who actively participate in the treatment and care of patients at tertiary care teaching hospital for the period of three months during January 2009 to March 2009. Ten points questionnaire was designed and validated to know the awareness ADR reporting and Pharmacovigilance. A total of 100 Interns participated in the study group. The participants were between 22-28 years and the experience of these interns was 0-12 months. Overall >90% of the participants were not aware of any of these questions. The percentage of correct answer for question 5 vs. 10 was 5-44 vs.90.33 respectively. Our study strongly recommends a massive need to create awareness among the Interns to improve the reporting of ADR and awareness about Pharmacovigilance. The training sessions must clarify the roles of the various healthcare professionals in Pharmacovigilance