Knowledge and perception about pharmacovigilance among pharmacy students of universities in Sana'a Yemen

Abstract

Introduction: Pharmacists in community or hospital setting play a key role in reporting Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) during practice. Under reporting is considered as a profession malpractice worldwide. Aim: To determine the level of knowledge and perception about phramacovigilance and ADRs reporting among final year pharmacy students of Universities in Sana'a Yemen. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted among 385 final year pharmacy students. One public and four private universities were selected randomly using a validated self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire contained data about student demographic data, knowledge and perception about the ADRs. The data was analysed by SPSS program and Chi-square tests were used to assess the significance of association. Results: The male students were more knowledgeable than female (p=0.035), as well as private university students had better ideas on how to report ADRs than public university students (p=0.009). Private university students reported that pharmacovigilance topic is well covered in their curriculum compared to public university students (p0.001). A significant difference was seen amongst the students of public and private universities when asked about reporting ADRs in future, former found more confident (p0.001). Furthermore, the private university students also had more command on the concept of post-marketing surveillance than public university students (p0.001). The private university students in Yemen were more known to causality assessment of ADRs as compared to the students of public universities (p0.001). The results of perception revealed regarding perception toward ADRs and pharmacovigilance. Female students (p0.018) and private universities students (p0.001) had positive perception than male and public university students respectively. Conclusion: The findings showed poor knowledge among students in Sana'a Universities and positive perception towards pharmacovigilance and ADRs reporting. A poor knowledge among the future pharmacists suggests need for educational interventions and improvement of strategies to ease the reporting mechanisms. Steps can be taken to improve pharmacovigilance tools and methods in Yemen as well as incorporating subjects of pharmacovigilance in the health faculty's curriculum in Yemen.