| dc.description.abstract | The Kenyan Pharmacovigilance program was officially launched in June 2009 and Kenya
joined the WHO programme in 2010 as the 98th member. Community pharmacy
personnel are considered drug experts and play a major role in contributing to
pharmacovigilance data as they may be the first or final point of contact for patients
seeking medication. The personnel therefore need to participate in the spontaneous
reporting system. The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors influencing
community pharmacy personnel participation in pharmacovigilance in Embu County.
The objectives of the study were to establish how training of the personnel dispensing
medicines influences community pharmacy personnel participation in pharmacovigilance,
to examine how the workload of the dispenser influences community pharmacy personnel
participation in pharmacovigilance, to determine how the influx of counterfeits in the
pharmaceutical supply chain influences community pharmacy personnel participation in
pharmacovigilance and to determine how pharmaceutical care influences community
pharmacy personnel participation in pharmacovigilance. A descriptive study design was
adopted for this study to assess the attitudes, knowledge and practices of community
pharmacy personnel towards participation in pharmacovigilance. The target population
was 55 pharmaceutical technologists, 5 pharmacists and one Pharmacy and Poisons Board
Inspector. A census was adopted since the sample size of community pharmacy personnel
was relatively small. There are only 60 registered community pharmacies located in
Embu County. Two sets of questionnaires were used to obtain the necessary data from the
respondents. The data collected was analysed using Statistical Package for Social
Sciences and presented in form of tables and percentages.
The study revealed that all the factors investigated had an influence on community
pharmacy personnel participation in pharmacovigilance due to the under reporting to
PPB. Training on pharmacovigilance had been undertaken by a minority of the personnel
and reporting Adverse Events and poor quality drugs had been done by very few. A
small number of the personnel were aware of the e-shot system was and only one had
subscribed to it. Therefore the level of reporting and awareness was low. The workload of
the dispenser contributes to dispensing errors and majority of the personnel agreed with
this statement. Very few of the personnel had attended trainings on workload
management and more than half of them held CPD forums once a year to discuss
dispensing errors. The influx of counterfeits in the pharmaceutical supply chain should
ideally increase the number of poor quality drug reports sent to PPB. However only half
of the respondents encountered counterfeit drugs but very few had reported to them PPB.
Only a small number of the personnel had received training on identification of
counterfeits. The pharmaceutical care concepts were known by majority of the
respondents and a significant number of them had designated consultation rooms. The
study recommended that stake holders in the pharmaceutical sector should include
pharmacovigilance and pharmaceutical care as core disciplines in Pharmacy education
and as policies. Other recommendations included use of educational interventions,
communication mechanisms and setting up of county pharmacovigilance centres by PPB
to include community pharmacy personnel in the pharmacovigilance framework. The
study gave areas for further study to be conducted in other counties to establish other
factors that influence community pharmacy personnel in pharmacovigilance. | en_US |
