Pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction: A study to evaluate how dental post graduate students and dental practitioners grasp the infrequent topic of dentistry in central Uttar Pradesh, India

Pharmacovigilance is a term of pharmacology which helps in the observation, evaluation, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects, mostly long-acting and short-acting adverse affect of various medicines. To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices among dental students and professionals about pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions, a cross-sectional questionnaire study close-ended questioner based study among 190 dental postgraduate students and dental practitioners was performed. 47.8% postgraduates students and 37.1% dental practitioners knew pharmacovigilance while 85.5% postgraduates and 83.4% dental practitioners were unaware of adverse drug reactions. No postgraduate student and 96.6% dental practitioners were not trained to report adverse drug reactions. Insufficient knowledge about pharmacovigilance and poor application to use adverse drug reaction in clinical work was common and more academic exposure is required to increase awareness and safe use of drugs to save more lives of patients in a day to day practice.