A Survey of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Nurses towards Pharamacovigilance in Taleqani Hospital

Detection of probable harmful consequences arised from the usage of pharmaceutical products requires decisive, continuous and close monitoring by medical staff whom should have knowledge of adverse drug reactions and they should also have to report any suspected instances, when any kind of adverse drug reactions have been observed. This study has been carried out on the knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses towards pharmacovigilance in the Taleqani medical, teaching and treatment center in Tehran, before and after an ADR educational program. This study was commenced in March 2005 and ended in October 2005, using a questionnaire through two steps. In every step, 150 questionnaires were distributed in various wards of the Taleqani Hospital. Collected data were entered into the Excel software and then data analyzed using the SPSS statistical software. Familiarity of nurses with the ADR center and it's duties is the first step in training how to report ADR, and could help to enhance thire awareness. The use of lecture training for increasing the awareness of nurses was found to be very effective. Regression multivariable analyses showed that the knowledge of nurses, regarding previous familiarity with the ADR center is better than the others (r = 0.38, P = 0.01), and the attitude of female nurses is better than males (r = 0.27, P = 0.01). According to the statistical results, the knowledge of nurses before the seminar was significantly less than the knowledge after the seminar (P= 0.0001), but there was no significant effect on the attitude (P= 0.05). Regarding the submission place of ADR reports, only 3.4% of nurses pointed out to the ADR center. Before and after training, a limited duration of time was reported to be the most restricted factor for clinical recognition of adverse drugs. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to offer continuous ADR educational program until we reach the point that voluntary reporting of adverse drug reactions becomes conventional and habitual among the nursing staff.