Evaluation of knowledge and attitude of medical residents about pharmacovigilance and adverse events in secondary and tertiary health care centers in Adana

Aim: Pharmacovigilance is scientific works formed by follow-up of problems faced during drug administrations, identification, recording and announcments of problems and necessary precautions. Even though adverse effects and situations caused by them are obvious; and while WHO and authorities about national national drug safety work hard to increase awareness and studies about this subject, interest and awareness of public and health care workers are low. For all these reasons, we aimed to evaluate knowledge and attitude of medical doctors about pharmacovigilance and adverse effects; identify needs and causes of these needs in the light of data gathered with our study and thus introduce possible solutions. Material and Methods: In our study, for the evaluating knowledge and attitude of medical residents about pharmacovigilance and adverse effect in 3 health centers of Adana that train medical residents such as Balcalı Hospital of Çukurova University Medical Faculty, Adana Medical Center of Başkent University, Adana Numune Training and Research Hospital. We conducted a questionnaire for 213 medical doctors of different medical fields that work and prescribe medications in these 3 centers. Data analysis is made with IBM SPSS ver 20 software. Findings: 93,9 % of doctors in our study were younger than 33; 52,1 % were male, 71,4 % were working in a university hospital. Physcians' daily average number of patients was 63,6±76,292, daily average number of prescriptions was 35,2±54,214 and average number of medications in a prescription was 3,0±0,899. 21,6 % of doctors in our study knew rational drug use criteria correctly, chief residents or attendings were most consulted (67.6 %) by residents for prescribing, 15,5 % of doctors were educated about pharmacovigilance, 53,5 % of doctors faced adverse effects in the recent year. When we sorted medications that caused adverse effects; 20,7 % of adverse effects were caused by antibiotics, 54,1 % of doctors were aware of adverse effects notification form, 13,1 % of doctors gave right answer about which center should be notified about adverse effects. Only 2,3 % of doctors were aware of Turkish Pharmacovigilance Center. When we sorted reasons why doctors didn't notify about adverse effects, 67,1 % answered with lack of time. In our study, 23 % of participants recommended herbal remedies to patients; and when we sorted disease groups for herbal remedy recommendations gastrointestinal system diseases ranked first with 5,6 % and 4 of doctors that recommended herbal remedies reported that they encountered adverse effects caused by herbal therapies. Conclusion: Our study is the first and pilot about knowledge and attitude of medical doctor residents about pharmacovigilance and adverse event notification. Further studies should be conducted about pharmacovigilance, especially lack of adverse effects notification reasons. Pharmacovigilance lessons should be given in faculties of medicine and pharmacy and a reporting culture should be formed. Education qualities of health care workers, especially medical doctors, should be improved with rational drug use and pharmacovigilance knowledge. Key Words: Pharmacovigilance, adverse effects, medical doctor resident, questionnaire, drug