Title : Assessing the awareness of adverse drug reaction reporting among Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) in Georgia
Abstract:
Introduction: Pharmacovigilance plays a vital role in public health, focusing on the detection, evaluation, and prevention of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Despite its importance, the high prevalence of ADRs has increased morbidity and mortality rates globally. Improving public health programs and monitoring drug safety are crucial to prevent or reduce harm to the patient. Healthcare professionals play a critical role in the pharmacovigilance system. They need relevant knowledge and expertise to make a significant contribution to the effective functioning of the system through timely detection, management and reporting of drug safety issues. Recent studies show that the rate of adverse drug reactions reporting by healthcare profesionals is still low, especially in developing countries. Pharmacovigilance system in Georgia is not effective and characterized with underreporting from health care professionals.
Aim / Objective : To investigate awareness of adverse drug reaction reporting among healthcare professionals in Georgia.
Methods : We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate awareness of adverse drug reaction reporting among physicians and nurses in Georgia. Data was collected by self-administered structured questionnaire from the HCPs working in the medical institutions of Georgia from April 2023 to July 2024.
Results: The study included 324 (48.36%) nurses and 346 (51.64%) physicians from 16 regions of Georgia.
Despite a high percentage of healthcare professionals encounter suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in their practice (80.06% of physicians and 66.67% of nurses), most do not report them. Key barriers included lack of awareness of the national ADR reporting system (89.89% of physicians compared to 93.52% of nurses), uncertainty regarding the reporting process (83.03% of physicians versus 70.83% of nurses), and insufficient understanding of the importance of reporting (74.73% of physicians against 88.43% of nurses). The reasons given for not reporting included 40.43% (112) of doctors believing that the adverse drug reaction was not serious, while 10.83% (30) were uncertain if the drug was the cause. Similarly, 41.20% (89) of nurses considered the adverse drug reaction to be not serious, and 5.56% (12) were unsure whether the drug caused the adverse drug reaction. A large proportion of the surveyed physicians (96.53% (334)) and nurses (96.30% (312)) reported that they had not received training on adverse drug reaction reporting. It is noteworthy that only 5.2% (18) of physicians and 3.4% (11) of nurses reported that pharmacovigilance was included in their training plan during their medical education. A key finding revealed that significant majority of surveyed physicians (96.53% (334)) and nurses (96.30% (312)) indicated that they had not received any training on adverse drug reaction reporting. Notably, only 5.2% (18) of physicians and 3.4% (11) of nurses reported that pharmacovigilance was incorporated into their medical education curricula.
Conclusion: The result shows low adverse drug reaction reporting among the health care professionals and its association with lack of knowledge about the national adverse drug reaction-reporting scheme. Addressing the identified barriers, such as providing the trainings, increasing awareness of the reporting schemes, and simplifying the reporting process, integrating pharmacovigilance into the medical and nursing curricula can build a robust ADR reporting system that ensures patient safety and strengthens pharmacovigilance practices.
