engleski

Knowledge, attitudes and counseling about drug- drug interactions among primary care physicians (PCPs) in Croatia.

Background and aims: Drug prescription is one of the most common medical interventions and it has been shown that there is not sufficient pharmacovigilance knowledge and positive attitude among prescribers (1, 2, 3). The aim of study was to asses knowledge, attitudes and practice about drug-drug interactions among PCPs in Croatia. Summary of work and outcomes: A cross-sectional study administered to 158 licensed community PCPs in Croatia. The questionnaire was of 5 sections: demographic and practice details, knowledge validation, attitudes and practice about drug-drug interactions. Mann- Whitney-U or Kruskal-Wallis tests were used. P- values of < ; 0.05 were considered significant. 81, 6% of the correspondents were female PCPs without specialization. 67, 7% of the participants think that better education about drug-drug interactions is necessary. 29% of them think that they did not get enough knowledge during formal education, yet, 39% of correspondents do not attend education classes. They still mostly think that they do not need any help or advice regarding to medications prescription, even among the special populations. 38% of the correspondents give advice about side-effects to their patients, mostly orally. Less than 1% of the correspondents said that they do not give patients any advice. The median knowledge score was 5 out of 10 (interquartile range 4 to 6 correct answers). Discussion: Recommendations about possible side- effects and drug-drug interactions by PCPs in Croatia are common. However, knowledge of potentially clinically significant drug interactions is not suficient. PCPs, even though aware of the problem, are mostly relied on themselves when it comes to counseling. Conclusion: The knowledge scores obtained in the study highlight the need for development of additional education courses about pharmacovigilance and rational pharmacotherapy.

drug-drug interactions, knowledge, pharmacovigilance

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