Assessment of the knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance by pharmacists in two states in southeastern Nigeria

Purpose: To evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of pharmacovigilance (PV) and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting among community and hospital pharmacists in Abia and Imo States of Nigeria.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was done using a validated questionnaire distributed among hospital and community pharmacists in the two States.Results: Out of the 227 copies of the questionnaire administered, 169 (74.4%) were usable. Only 22% of all the pharmacists had postgraduate qualification but 78.0% had more than five years postqualification experience. All respondents were aware of the concept of PV; 73.4% had seen a patient with ADR while 17.7% had not seen the ADR reporting form in use in Nigeria. Only 24.3% had officially reported an ADR. Factors that affected reporting were lack of incentive (52.1%), role conflict (69.2%), and role overload (72.8%). Mean score for KAP-related questions was higher among hospital pharmacists than their community counterparts.Conclusion: The study has shown that while all pharmacists were aware of PV, the attitude and practice of many of them constituted a challenge and accounted for poor level of reporting.Keywords: Adverse drug reactions, Community pharmacists, Hospital pharmacists, National Pharmacovigilance Centre