Adverse drug reactions reporting by undergraduate medical students in a tertiary care teaching hospital of India: Content and quality analysis in comparison to physician reporting

BACKGROUND An important challenge to spontaneous reporting system is underreporting. The sensitization and involvement of undergraduate medical students can reduce underreporting in pharmacovigilance program. OBJECTIVE To analyze the clinical characteristics and reporting quality of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by undergraduate medical students in comparison with physicians' reporting. METHODS We sensitized the second professional year undergraduate medical students about pharmacovigilance and asked them to submit reports of ADR observed during their clinical posting from January to December 2015. We compared students' reports with those sent by physicians (Department of Medicine and Allied Branches, Paediatric, Obstetrics and Gynaecology) of our institute during the same time period. We included ADRs of "certain," "probable," or "possible" categories as per the World Health Organization causality definitions in analysis of both groups. We excluded "unlikely," "unclassified," and "unclassifiable" causality ADRs from the analysis due to questionable association of reactions with suspected drugs. We collected data of demographics, pattern of ADRs, causative drugs, seriousness, other clinical characteristics, and quality of reporting. RESULTS We analyzed a total number of 176 students' reports having 269 ADRs and 143 physicians' reports covering 180 ADRs. The students predominantly reported ADRs of single drug suspect (84.09% vs. 43.35%), "probable" causality (63.94% vs. 21.11), and augmented type reactions (67.29% vs. 55%) than physicians. Both groups did not differ in reporting of serious reactions (6.25% vs. 9.09%). Students most frequently suspected gastrointestinal disorders (35.68%), whereas physicians most frequently reported skin and appendages disorders (41.11%). Students and physicians more commonly suspected ADRs due to systemic anti-infective (33.64%) and nervous system (42.07%) class of drugs, respectively. The quality analysis suggested no substantial difference in most domains of ADR reporting among both groups. CONCLUSION Students' reported valuable and clinically relevant ADRs. Medical students should be exposed to ADR reporting during their clinical teaching posting and should be actively involved in pharmacovigilance program to improve detection rate.