Knowledge, attitude, practice and barriers towards pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions reporting among healthcare professionals in Turkey: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Globally, pharmacovigilance (PV) is crucial for the patient's safety and proper use of drugs. Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reaction (ADR) is a professional obligation of every healthcare professionals (HCPs). The purpose of this systematic review was to analyze the existing literature about the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) level of HCPs regarding PV and ADRs reporting in Turkey.

METHODS: A systematic and comprehensive articles search strategy was carried out in different seven electronic databases (PubMed, PubMed Central, Goggle Scholar, Ovid-SP, MEDLINE, Wiley Online Library, DergiPark) from 2010 to 2020. We searched to identify existing literature about cross-sectional observational studies investigating the KAP of HCPs regarding PV and ADRs reporting in different geographical regions of Turkey. Quality assessment and risk of bias were assessed among included studies.

RESULTS: Fifteen studies were chosen for full-text analysis. Finally, according to inclusion criteria, seven research articles were selected for systematic review. Overall, the KAP of HCPs varies across the studies. The lack of a standardized validated measuring tool to evaluate the KAP and differences in questionnaire items were the main limitations in included studies. Around, 69.1% (range: 54.6-100%) of HCPs were not aware of the national pharmacovigilance center in Turkey. About, 37.5% (range: 7.1-75.7%) of HCPs believed that reporting of ADRs is not important and 87.5% (range: 69.3-100%) stated that they never reported ADR previously during their practice. The most frequently highlighted barriers to PV were lack of time, uncertainty and did not know where to report.

CONCLUSION: This systematic review revealed a major KAP gap in Turkey towards PV activities. Low ADR reporting practice of HCPs was a major identified issue. The creation of a mandatory unified PV education intervention for future HCPs to rationally report ADR of drugs are crucial for a better healthcare system.