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Views of British community pharmacists on direct patient reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs)
Author(s) -
Krska Janet
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.023
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1099-1557
pISSN - 1053-8569
DOI - 10.1002/pds.3306
Subject(s) - medicine , community pharmacist , community pharmacy , pharmacy , family medicine , pharmacoepidemiology , quarter (canadian coin) , drug reaction , health professionals , alternative medicine , adverse drug reaction , drug , nursing , health care , medical prescription , pharmacology , archaeology , pathology , economics , economic growth , history
Purpose To survey British community pharmacists’ views and practices concerning direct patient reporting of ADRs. Methods Cross‐sectional postal survey of community pharmacists in Britain Results Of 1096 questionnaires distributed, 297 usable responses were obtained, (27.1%). Respondents’ estimates of the frequency of patients reporting a suspected ADR to them had a median of 1.0 per month. Almost a fifth of respondents (19.6%) do not specifically ask patients about ADRs, and 38.7% do not encourage patients to report. Only 18.5% displayed a poster promoting the YC Scheme in their pharmacy, but 57.9% claimed to have patient YCs available. A quarter (24.9%) of respondents considered that ADR reporting should be restricted to health professionals and 14.4% considered that patients were not at all capable of identifying ADRs. Conclusions The low response rate and overall results suggest that British community pharmacists may lack interest in and do not promote direct patient reporting. Increased awareness of the benefits and mechanisms of patient reporting may be required to ensure that pharmacists can provide the necessary support to facilitate patient reporting. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.