Physician's Knowledge, Attitude and Performance regarding Adverse Drug Reaction and its reporting in Sari - 2004

Background and The national report system on the Âdverse Drug Reaction (ÂDR) in order to have better understanding and control has been designed and used in many countries including ours, but it is poorly exculed because of lack of reporting and feedback. Ïn this study we have tried to analyse the knowledge, attitude and performance of the Medical Doctors (MDs) on the ÂDR to Finf out the familiarity and ability of MDs was performed to smoothly work with the national report system (The Yellow Çard). This cross sectional study using a classical questionnaire designed by the Ëuropean Food and Drug Âdministration. The questionnaire was completed by 350 MD'S (General & specialist) in city of Sari. The recognition level of MDs from the yellow card system was about 24.9% from which 88% were general practitioners and 12% were specialists. 87.4% of all MDs have diagnosed some adverse drug reaction in patients under their supervision but only 25% of them did report on it. The major reasons for not reporting are as follows: 63.5% for the lack of recognition and understanding of the national report system, 42.2% for having casual attitude toward ÂDR, 36.1% for the uncertainty that ÂDR had a relation with the medication used. 51.3% of all MDs had an acceptable knowledge in the recognition of ÂDR. Çonclusion: The result of this study shows that in most of the cases the reason for not reporting ÂDR in the first place was due to the lack of information and understanding of such system and secondly the lack of desire to report due to lack of time and confidence in the system. Ânother interesting point in this study was the lack of knowledge of MDs about the ÂDR. Ït was worse specifically among specialists and specially the surgeons.