Effect of educational intervention on healthcare providers knowledge and perception towards pharmacovigilance: A tertiary teaching hospital experience

OBJECTIVE: Based on the theory on planned behavior, perception or attitude is found to be a well-established predictor of healthcare providers’ intentions to perform different behaviors. Also, improving knowledge was proposed to affect their practice as well. In Jordan, many studies have been conducted to evaluate healthcare providers’ knowledge and perception towards pharmacovigilance but no intervention or training was provided. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of an educational workshop on the knowledge and perception of healthcare providers towards pharmacovigilance in a Jordanian tertiary teaching hospital. METHODS: An interventional study conducted in Jordan University Hospital on various healthcare providers to assess their pre- and post-knowledge and perception towards pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting via questionnaire before and after an educational workshop. RESULTS: Among the 200 invited healthcare providers, 150 attended the educational workshop (response rate 75.0%). Pre-workshop, healthcare providers showed an overall low knowledge score (7.8/19), where only 8.7% could define pharmacovigilance correctly. On the other hand, they showed a favorable perception score (33.6/39). Following educational workshop, knowledge scores significantly improved by 67.9% (P-value <0.05). A similar finding was obtained for perception scores, where perception scores significantly improved by 10.1% following workshop (P-value <0.05). CONCLUSION: Continuous efforts are needed to implement different strategies including education modules and the provision of appropriate training programs to increase awareness and improve perception towards pharmacovigilance among healthcare providers. Future study is needed to evaluate the impact of improving knowledge and perception on ADRs reporting practice.