Knowledge, perceptions and practices of pharmacovigilance amongst community and hospital pharmacists in a selected district of North West Province, South Africa

Abstract

Background: Pharmacovigilance (PV) as a means of ensuring drug safety is an essential component of the process ensuring that the risk of drug use does not outweigh the benefit. Pharmacists are valuable in collecting PV information, but not many studies explored the knowledge, perceptions and practices of both community and hospital pharmacists towards the practice of PV.Objectives: The aim of the study was to explore the knowledge, perceptions and practise of PV amongst the pharmacists in a selected district of North West Province, South Africa.Method: A cross sectional study was conducted amongst pharmacists in a selected district of the North West province, using a pre-tested questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the results including ANOVA testing.Results: One hundred and two pharmacists (68.9%) completed the questionnaire. Although familiar with the concept of PV, pharmacists knowledge scores were low. Pharmacists agreed that PV is a useful tool, but perceived the PV authorities to be distant and remote. Although more than 90% indicated that all adverse drug reactions should be reported, only 44.1% indicated that they have reported adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Only 6.7% of pharmacists were satisfied with feedback received from authorities after reporting an ADR. Barriers were cited that prevented them from reporting ADRs. Over 80% indicated they would participate in further PV training.Conclusion: The majority of pharmacists are familiar with the concept of PV, but less than half reported any ADR. They are willing to participate in PV processes but are unsure what their exact role playing should be. More than half indicated that they would like to see improvements to the current PV system in South Africa. The majority are prepared to undergo further education to improve their PV knowledge.

Veterinary pharmacovigilance in sub-Sahara Africa context: a pilot study of adverse reactions to veterinary medicine in Cameroon

“…Similar findings were reported by Joubert et al [11] in South Africa or Syed et al [20] in Pakistan where pharmacists and physicians have shown few knowledge on the concept of pharmacovigilance. These actors need information and training about pharmacovigilance.…”

“…Similar studies recorded 68% suspected drug inefficacy and 32% ADRs of 420 cases between 1997 to 2010; 16% drug inefficacy suspicions and 79% of ADRs of 376 cases from 1985 to 2011 and 43.30% of ADRs and 56.70% of suspicions of ineffective veterinary drugs in 443 cases between 1990 to 2011 respectively in Senegal [10, 21], Ivory Coast [22] and Burkina Faso [23]. This high proportion of ineffective drugs recorded in this study may be due to the invasion of many African countries including Cameroon with huge amounts of counterfeit drugs and mediocre generics [9, 11, 17]. Studies in Cameroon on the quality of veterinary drugs in the formal and non-formal sector gave a non-compliance rate of 69% [24] and 72% [25] which confirmed the hypothesis of Van Gool about the poor quality of veterinary drugs in Sub Saharan African market [9].…”

“…For example, a cross-sectional descriptive survey in Senegal showed that 58% of veterinary practitioners have no idea about the concept of pharmacovigilance [10]. Joubert and Naidoo [11] in South Africa also reported low (42%) knowledge scores of pharmacists as concerns the concept of Pharmacovigilance. An assessment of pharmacovigilance systems in 26 sub-Saharan African countries showed that only 8 (30%) countries collected reports on adverse events with only 3 programs to contribute a sizeable number of reports.…”

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pharmacovigilance Among Operators of Pharmacies and Patent Medicine Stores in Sokoto Metropolis, Nigeria

“…It is also surprising that only about a third of the respondents in this study knew the correct definition of an adverse drug reaction (35.7%), and that the yellow form is used in reporting adverse drug reactions (36.1%). However, the main cause for concern is the generally poor knowledge of pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions reporting in studies conducted among community pharmacists and patent medicine vendors in Nigeria 14,15,20 and other developing countries including South Africa, 9 Jordan, 6 Yemen, 21 India, 4 and Saudi Arabia, 22 as they imply poor sensitization of healthcare providers on PV as a result of the weak PV systems in these countries.…”

“…In a study among healthcare workers at the Mulago National Referral and Teaching Hospital in Uganda, 8 only 37.7, 18.4 and 16.6% of respondents knew the tools used in ADR reporting, where to report ADR, and had ever reported an ADR respectively. Another study among community and hospital pharmacists in a selected district of North West province, South Africa, 9 reported that less than half of respondents (46.1%) knew the correct definition of PV, and despite the fact that most respondents (79.4%) regarded PV as a valuable tool, only 44.1% had ever reported an ADR. The enormity of the situation in sub-Saharan Africa becomes glaringly obvious and alarming with the deplorable state of the healthcare services across the continent, and with operators of patent medicine stores being the main care providers for common but potentially deadly illnesses in the respective populations across the continent; in addition to the prevalent inappropriate drug dispensing practices by them, and the fact that their practices are largely unregulated.…”