Knowledge and attitude of community pharmacists in Selangor on adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting / Nurul Hidayah Harun

This study aims to identify the awareness of community pharmacists in Selangor regarding ADRs reporting. In order to assess community pharmacists' knowledge and attitudes, prospective, cross-sectional study is use to collect the data from the subjects that represented the population being studied. The study population comprises of the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, Hutu Langat, Gombak, Petaling and Klang in the state of Selangor. The period of the study was from August till October 2008. Besides assessing the knowledge and attitudes of pharmacists, this research also aims to evaluate the factors that may acts as deterrent in reporting ADRs, investigates the methods use by pharmacists during reporting ADRs and to know whether pharmacists' professional qualification contributes to knowledge of ADR reporting. Questionnaires comprises with five hypothetical cases are used to evaluate the knowledge of community pharmacists which is jaundice with frusemide, nausea with montelukast, headache with venlafaxine, thrombocytopaenia with heparin and cold extremities with β-adrenoceptor blockers. Results of the survey show that most of the community pharmacists in Selangor mostly females have knowledge about AD Rs reporting as most of them have correctly thought in 4 out of 5 hypothetical cases. Overall the attitude of most community pharmacists in Selangor was good even though in some cases the results showed poor attitude among pharmacists such as they did not identify the ADRs in their care and did not report ADR whenever they suspected ADR. The majority of them (55%) sent ADRs reports to the drug authority. Most of the community pharmacists in Selangor preferred to use email (47.5%) compared to using phone and facsimiles to report ADRs. This study also, found out that qualification do not determine the different knowledge of ADRs reporting. In conclusion, community pharmacists in Selangor need to have the right knowledge and attitude in reporting ADRs because this can reduce the numbers of mortality and morbidity in patients.