Adverse Drug Reactions Reporting: Knowledge and Perception among General Public in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives: The current study aims to assess general public knowledge and perception toward Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) reporting systems in Eastern province, Saudi Arabia.Methods: A cross-sectional survey based study was conducted from 1st September 2019 to 31stOctober 2019 among the community in Eastern province, Saudi Arabia. A validated self-administered questionnaire were distributed among easily approachable 1500 participants through social media in which 1038 respondents were completely filled the survey form. Chi square test were used for the calculation of variance among the group. P-value less than and equal to 0.05 is considered statistically significant.Results: The response rate of survey was 69.20%. The mean age of the survey respondents were 30.5± 8.37years. Among all the respondents 335(32.27%) respondents were male and 703(67.72%) respondents were female from community of Eastern province, Saudi Arabia. Only, 7.61% of the respondents were familiar with the Saudi National Pharmacovigilance Centre (NPC) (p<0.05). 87.57% general public of Eastern province, Saudi Arabia were aware about electronic Adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting procedure (p<0.05). While 89.88% population think that all marketed drugs are safe (p<0.05).Conclusion: General public of Eastern province, Saudi Arabia are not aware about ADRs reporting procedure and the currently implemented reporting system. Awareness about ADR reporting must be foster by healthcare workers and the other relevant stakeholder’s bodies on issues related to ADRs detection.

Keywords: ADR (Adverse Drug Reaction); Saudi National Pharmacovigilance Centre (Saudi NPC); Eastern province; Knowledge; Perception; Saudi Arabia