Pharmacovigilance in Sudan: Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour among Community Pharmacists

Background: Adverse drug reaction monitoring and reporting require a multidisciplinary approach and pharmacists have a major role to play in this matter. Under-reporting of the ADRs by the prescribers is a common problem in devolving countries. Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of community pharmacists toward pharmacovigilance in Khartoum city. Method: Descriptive cross-sectional study among 258 community pharmacists during the period from October to November 2017 using a pre-designed questionnaire. The study was evaluated participants regarding knowledge on drug safety in routine practice, the knowledge and attitude of community pharmacists toward ADR reporting and their behaviour on ADR related aspects. Result: Out of 325 participants, most of them were male (50.8%) with age group From 18 years to 30 years (62%) and B. Pharm (57.8%) and practice experience more than 2 years to 5 years (38.8%) and Training received in pharmacovigilance Yes (42.2%). Assessing pharmacist’s knowledge showed that 74% of community pharmacists know the ADR definition and 39.5% are not know the ADR are preventable to some extent, no association between knowledge and qualification, and there is an association with practice. Assessing pharmacists knowledge toward ADR reporting, 69% of the participant are agree awareness of the national pharmacovigilance program in Sudan revealed no statistically significant association with training in pharmacovigilance, positive attitude of pharmacist toward ADR reporting, 67.8% of the pharmacists believed that the role of the pharmacist in ADR reporting was essential revealed there are statistically significant associations with training in pharmacovigilance, the behaviour of pharmacist toward ADR, 91.9%of participant agrees to ask for the allergy history of the patient before dispensing the medication revealed no statistically significant association with training in pharmacovigilance. Conclusion: Even though most of the pharmacists had knowledge, attitude and behaviour on ADR reporting and related aspects, the number of them did not know drug safety-related aspects of specific drugs. Educational programs have to be generated awareness on how to report ADR and stimulate pharmacists’ more active participation in the pharmacovigilance program. There is a true need to have training programs to improve the knowledge of pharmacists on ADR related aspects that are of benefit daily, which could greatly have an impact on patient safety. Key Policy Messages: The result reflected pharmacists knowledge toward ADR reporting, most of the participant are agree awareness of the national pharmacovigilance program in Sudan revealed no statistically significant association with training in pharmacovigilance, positive attitude of pharmacist toward ADR reporting, most of the pharmacists believed that the role of the pharmacist in ADR reporting was essential revealed there are statistically significant associations with training in pharmacovigilance, the behaviour of pharmacist toward ADR, majority of the participant agrees to ask for the allergy history of the patient before dispensing the medication revealed no statistically significant association with training in pharmacovigilance.