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Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country

Developed countries have established pharmacovigilance systems to monitor the safety of medicines. However, in the developing world, drug monitoring and reporting are facing enormous challenges. The current study was designed to explore the challenges related to the understanding and practices of ph...

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Autores principales: Hussain, Rabia, Hassali, Mohamed Azmi, ur Rehman, Anees, Muneswarao, Jaya, Hashmi, Furqan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32218355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072209
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author Hussain, Rabia
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
ur Rehman, Anees
Muneswarao, Jaya
Hashmi, Furqan
author_facet Hussain, Rabia
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
ur Rehman, Anees
Muneswarao, Jaya
Hashmi, Furqan
author_sort Hussain, Rabia
collection PubMed
description Developed countries have established pharmacovigilance systems to monitor the safety of medicines. However, in the developing world, drug monitoring and reporting are facing enormous challenges. The current study was designed to explore the challenges related to the understanding and practices of physicians in reporting adverse drug reactions in Lahore, Pakistan. Through the purposive sampling technique, 13 physicians were interviewed. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed for a thematic content analysis. The thematic content analysis yielded six major themes: (1) Familiarity with medication safety and adverse drug reaction (ADR) concept, (2) Knowledge about pharmacovigilance activities, (3) Practices related to ADR reporting, (4) Barriers impeding ADR reporting, (5) Acknowledgement of the pharmacist’s role, and (6) System change needs. The majority of the physicians were unaware of the ADR reporting system; however, they were ready to accept practice changes if provided with the required skills and training. A lack of knowledge, time, and interest, a fear of legal liability, poor training, inadequate physicians’ and other healthcare professionals’ communication, and most importantly lack of a proper reporting system were reported as barriers. The findings based on emerging themes can be used to establish an effective pharmacovigilance system in Pakistan. Overall, physicians reported a positive attitude towards practice changes, provided the concerned authorities support and take interest in this poorly acknowledged but most needed component of the healthcare system.
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spelling pubmed-71780002020-04-28 Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country Hussain, Rabia Hassali, Mohamed Azmi ur Rehman, Anees Muneswarao, Jaya Hashmi, Furqan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Developed countries have established pharmacovigilance systems to monitor the safety of medicines. However, in the developing world, drug monitoring and reporting are facing enormous challenges. The current study was designed to explore the challenges related to the understanding and practices of physicians in reporting adverse drug reactions in Lahore, Pakistan. Through the purposive sampling technique, 13 physicians were interviewed. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed for a thematic content analysis. The thematic content analysis yielded six major themes: (1) Familiarity with medication safety and adverse drug reaction (ADR) concept, (2) Knowledge about pharmacovigilance activities, (3) Practices related to ADR reporting, (4) Barriers impeding ADR reporting, (5) Acknowledgement of the pharmacist’s role, and (6) System change needs. The majority of the physicians were unaware of the ADR reporting system; however, they were ready to accept practice changes if provided with the required skills and training. A lack of knowledge, time, and interest, a fear of legal liability, poor training, inadequate physicians’ and other healthcare professionals’ communication, and most importantly lack of a proper reporting system were reported as barriers. The findings based on emerging themes can be used to establish an effective pharmacovigilance system in Pakistan. Overall, physicians reported a positive attitude towards practice changes, provided the concerned authorities support and take interest in this poorly acknowledged but most needed component of the healthcare system. MDPI 2020-03-25 2020-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7178000/ /pubmed/32218355 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072209 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hussain, Rabia
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
ur Rehman, Anees
Muneswarao, Jaya
Hashmi, Furqan
Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title_full Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title_fullStr Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title_full_unstemmed Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title_short Physicians’ Understanding and Practices of Pharmacovigilance: Qualitative Experience from a Lower Middle-Income Country
title_sort physicians’ understanding and practices of pharmacovigilance: qualitative experience from a lower middle-income country
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32218355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072209
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