International Journal of Scientific Reports | August 2021 | Vol 7 | Issue 8 Page 382 International Journal of Scientific Reports Alam K et al. Int J Sci Rep. 2021 Aug;7(8):382-387 http://www.sci-rep.com pISSN 2454-2156 | eISSN 2454-2164 Original Research Article Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions reporting among the community pharmacies in Dharan Kadir Alam 1 *, Badri Karki 2 , Amit Kumar Gupta 2 , Deependra Prasad Sarraf 1 , Subash Wagle 2 INTRODUCTION The WHO defines ADR as a response to a drug that is noxious and unintended and that occurs at doses normally used in man for prophylaxis, diagnosis or therapy of disease or for the modification of physiologic function. 1 ADRs are considered a major cause of patients’ morbidity, mortality, hospital admissions as well as increasing length of hospitalization and cost of treatment. 2 It affects irrespective of the age group of patients worldwide with varying magnitude of causing morbidity and mortality. 3 ADRs are reported to be the 4- 6th leading cause of death in the United States of America. 4 A study from South India revealed that 0.7% of hospital admissions were due to ADRs and a total of 3.7% hospitalized patients experienced ADRs of which death accounts for 1.3%. 5 ABSTRACT Background: Community pharmacist’s (CPs) knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions (ADR) play a vital role in preventing harmful effects of medicine. The objective was to assess the KAP of pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting among CP. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 132 CP in Dharan between February-March 2019 by using a self-administered 25-item semi-structured questionnaire. The KAP score was categorized as good (score 13-25) and poor (score 0-12). The descriptive statistics were calculated using Microsoft excel 2010. Results: Out of 132 pharmacies, only 77 responded giving a response rate of 58.3%. There were 45 (58.4%) male. Majority of the participants (45, 58.4%) had completed diploma in pharmacy course. Only 23 (29.9%) respondents gave the correct responses regarding the definition of pharmacovigilance and 23.4% were aware of the national pharmacovigilance centre. 50.9% agreed that reporting of ADRs is a part of pharmacist duty and it was important to report ADRs and was leading cause of hospitalization. Sixty three (81.8%) participants had never ever been trained on how to report ADR. Seventy (90.9%) participants were willing to report ADR, however, 51 (66.2%) had never seen the ADR reporting form. Only 3 (3.9%) participants had good KAP score (23.33±1.54). Conclusions: Despite of relatively better attitude towards pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting, they had a limited knowledge and practice with regard to ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance. The study findings highlights the need to strengthen the community pharmacovigilance program for safer medication use at the community level. Keywords: Adverse drug reaction, Attitude, Knowledge, Practice, Pharmacovigilance 1 Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal 2 Department of Pharmacy, Sunsari Technical College, Dharan, Nepal Received: 03 May 2021 Accepted: 02 June 2021 *Correspondence: Dr. Kadir Alam, E-mail: alamkad2050@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/issn.2454-2156.IntJSciRep20212833