Medication safety knowledge, attitude, and practice among hospital pharmacists in Lebanon.

BACKGROUND: Studies showed that pharmacists have little experience with adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting due to insufficient knowledge of the concept of ADR and pharmacovigilance (PV). There is an urge to assess hospital pharmacists' knowledge in medication safety practices.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice, among hospital pharmacists in Lebanon concerning ADRs and PV concepts.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study, conducted between March and July 2016, enrolled 187 hospital pharmacists in all Lebanese districts.

RESULTS: Concerning knowledge, 60.8% of the pharmacists said that ADR is an injury caused by appropriate and suboptimal care, while 74.6% of them said it can be preventable and nonpreventable. Moreover, 47.5% of them defined PV as being the study that detects, assesses, understands, and prevents adverse effects. Furthermore, 55.1% believed that PV concerns drug, herbal, medical devices, and vaccine problems. Concerning attitude, 61% of the pharmacists said they do not support direct ADR reporting by the patient. Of them, 78.6% confessed that ADR reporting is a professional obligation to them while 88.2% admitted that it is time-consuming with no outcome. When it comes to practice, 64.2% had been trained to report ADRs. Only 20.8% and 24.2% confessed reporting ADRs more than once a week, respectively. More than half (54.5%) said that they report the ADR to the patient's prescriber.

CONCLUSION: Lebanese hospital pharmacists have little knowledge about the concept and process of PV and spontaneous ADRs reporting system. However, these pharmacists have positive attitudes, but very little practice with reporting systems. Educational programs are urgently needed to emphasize the role and responsibility of pharmacists in PV practices and to raise awareness towards ADR reporting process.