Analyzing the knowledge and opinion of final year student of medical and dentistry faculty in Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University towards pharmacovigilance

Pharmacovigilance (PV) refers to activities and scientific studies aimed at detecting, evaluating, identifying, and preventing adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and other potential drug-related issues. PV studies are designed to increase the number of spontaneous reports of ADRs that cause mortality and morbidity in the general population, as well as to educate health professionals and the general public about PV. The purpose of this study is to assess final-year medical and dental students' knowledge and opinions on PV and ADR reporting. In this thesis, an online survey for medical and dental students at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University was conducted using the Google Form method to assess their knowledge and opinions about PV and ADRs reporting. IBM SPSS software (version 20.0) was used for data analysis. The final year students of the faculty of medicine and dentistry who participated in our study had an average age of 24 years, with 40.8% of males and 59.2% of females. About 69.1% of the participants received training on PV/adverse effects, 30.9% did not, 20.4% encountered adverse effect and 79.6% never encountered them. Majority of the respondents (85.5%) stated that ADR notification is a professional obligation. However, 14.5% reported that it is not necessity, 61.8% stated that it will not cause a loss of time and difficulty in the workplace and 38.2% of them stated that it will be necessity. Only 19.1% of the participants know that there is a place where side/adverse effects of drugs are reported and 80.9% did not know. Moreover, when asked from the students where these reports are made, then it was found that 6.6% of them provided TÜFAM, 5.3% TİTCK, 1.3% TİTCK and TÜFAM. Our study observed important information about final-year students' knowledge and opinions regarding PV and ADR notification. Students should be provided with pharmacovigilance training (seminars, congresses, workshops, etc.) in order to raise awareness and improve education quality by identifying students' deficiencies in PV and reporting ADR. Keywords: Knowledge, pharmacovigilance, awareness, opinion, medical and dental students.