Introduction: Most pharmacovigilance systems around the world adopted spontaneous reporting system as main method for collecting data about adverse drug reactions. In Malaysia currently reporting of adverse drug reactions is mandatory for drug registration holders and voluntary for health care professionals. As one of the important of health care professionals, community pharmacists play a major role in patient medication safety.
Based on the data available from Malaysia national pharmacovigilance center, the involvement of community pharmacists in adverse drug reactions reporting remains low. Methods: A qualitative study was carried out utilizing face to face interviews using a semi-structured interview guide with a sample of sixteen community pharmacists. Results: Sixteen community pharmacists were interviewed and thematic content analysis of the interviews revealed four major themes: familiarity with the reporting system, attitude and behavior towards ADR reporting, and barriers associated with reporting adverse drug reactions.
The assessments of transcripts revealed that the community pharmacists generally had a positive attitude towards ADRs reporting and relay ADR reporting as a part of their professional duties. The major factors influencing the reporting rate of ADRs were the behaviour of the patients, type of practice, work overload and lack of time.
The study identified the major barriers for ADR reporting to be lack of knowledge in determining the types of ADRs occurred, lack of understanding about the available mechanisms of reporting and lack of communications from the regulatory authorities even if a report has been sent.
In the present study, the respondents highlighted a few suggestions to improve the current reporting rates. Conclusions: The majority of the pharmacists surveyed were very confused in regards to ADR reporting and had very little knowledge about ADR reporting as a whole. The results emphasized the importance of establishing and continuing efforts to promote the ADR reporting scheme in Malaysia and to overcome the barriers identified by the study.
