ATTITUDES TO ADVERSE DRUG REACTION REPORTING BY MEDICAL PRACTITIONERSIN A NORTHERN ITALIAN DISTRICT

Attitudes to adverse drug reaction (ADR) spontaneous reporting were in vestigated among all the National Health Service (NHS) doctors operati ng in the territory of the Area Health Authority n.l of Varese (Italy) , to assess their awareness of the reporting system and to identify re asons for under reporting. Three hundred and fifty doctors were sent q uestionnaires and 207 (59.1%) were returned completed. More than 77% o f the responders stated to have noticed ADRs, which were mainly report ed to the pharmaceutical manufacturers and, in a minority of cases, to the NHS. Fifty per cent did not report ADRs to anyone. Important fact ors for deciding to report were unusualness and severity of the reacti on, and involvement of a new drug. The main reason for not reporting w as the clinical negligibility of the reaction. There was little knowle dge about the types of reactions to be preferentially reported and the purposes of ADR reporting systems. Nevertheless, nearly everyone aske d for feed-back information about reported ADRs. NHS doctors in this d istrict have little information concerning ADR reporting systems. Some effective measures to improve the situation could be: inclusion of ph armacovigilance into pre- and post-graduated continuing education prog rams, provision of guidelines for ADR spontaneous reporting and of fee d-back information to reporters, implementation of regional pharmacovi gilance units. (C) 1997 The Italian Pharmacological Society.