Adverse drug reactions reporting at a referral hospital in Zimbabwe.

Objectives: To establish factors influencing voluntary reporting of adverse drug reactions among health workers. A second objective was to establish the level of awareness on adverse drug reaction reporting and attitudes towards the voluntary adverse drug reaction reporting scheme.

Design: Cross sectional descriptive study.

Setting: Parirenyatwa Hospital, a major referral and teaching hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Subjects: 200 health professionals randomly selected from various departments.

Main Outcome Measures: Number of health workers reporting adverse drug reactions; awareness of the adverse drug reaction reporting scheme.

Results: 144 (72%) questionnaires were completed. About half (47.2%) of the respondents did not know how to report an adverse drug reaction and 47.1% were unaware of the existence of a formal adverse drug reaction reporting scheme in Zimbabwe. One fifth (20.1%) of the respondents had reported an adverse drug reaction at some point. Two main factors contributing to under-reporting cited by respondents were the poor feedback from the national reporting centre (59%) and inaccessibility of reporting facilities (45.8%). Beliefs that one should only report an adverse drug reaction if certain of causality (46.5%) and that really serious adverse drug reactions are well documented before a drug is marketed (35.4%) could also account for under reporting. However, 75.7%, viewed adverse drug reaction reporting as a professional obligation.

Conclusion: Lack of awareness of healthcare professionals to the national (Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe) adverse drug reaction voluntary reporting scheme, poor feedback and inaccessibility of reporting facilities are the main factors contributing towards underreporting.