Knowledge, Attitude & Practice about Pharmacovigilance among 2nd year BDS students in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Introduction: Medicines have contributed substantially to treating diseases in the modern era. There is a worldwide concern about increasing number of adverse effects caused by drugs. World Health Organization (WHO) defines Pharmacovigilance as “science and activities relating to detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug related problems. According to previous studies, there had been a lack of knowledge in dental students regarding Pharmacovigilance and reporting of adverse drug reactions. Hence, this study was planned to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance in dental student’s at a tertiary care teaching hospital.

Material and Methods : This study was a cross-sectional, survey-based study conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance at a tertiary care teaching hospital in India. The data for this study were collected through a self- designed, semi-structured, pre-validated questionnaire circulated through Google forms to ²nd year BDS students. The results were presented using descriptive statistics such as percentages.

Results : This study shows a knowledge gap about pharmacovigilance. The overall attitude of participants was positive. The study showed overall unsatisfactory practice among participants.

Conclusion : The Continuing Medical Education (CME), Training and group discussions will be required to enhance the knowledge, attitude and practice of II^nd year dental students regarding pharmacovigilance