الفهرس 
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Abstract
Pharmacovigilance(PV) is central to drug safety.Recently, PV has constantly grown its importance, relating to the absolute amount of ADRs and the fact of several hospital admissions are due to ADR. It contributes to the protection of patients and maintaining public health.PVhas been defined by WHO as a science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problems.
WHO defined ADR asa response to a drug that is noxious and unintended and occurs at doses normally used in man for prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy of disease, or modification of physiological function.Over 770.000 people are estimated to suffer from an injury or die every year from ADRs. The knowledge about PV is still in its early stage, especially in Arabian countries. In Egypt, PV is considered a new concept.
As a future drug expert, pharmacy students must be equipped with the skills to prevent, identify, and resolve drug-related problems. A limited number of studies have been conducted to evaluate pharmacy students’ knowledge, and attitudes about PV.
This work aims to assess the knowledge and attitude toward pharmacovigilanceamong pharmacy students atAlexandria Universities.
A cross-sectional studywas carried among final year pharmacy students at Alexandria University (governmental) and Pharos University (private) in Alexandria, Egypt.
The calculated sample size were 384 students which was rounded to 400.It was calculated using Epi Info software, assuming that knowledge of PV among pharmacy students is (50%) at 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level.
Data collection was conducted using a self -administered questionnaire from the beginning of October till the end of December 2018.
The questionnaire included Socio-demographic characteristics, academic history, knowledge, and attitude toward PV. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.Bivariate analysis using Chi-square test and multivariate Logistic regression were used. Mentel Henzel chi-square of Trend was assessed between knowledge and grade using MedCalc version 15.2.1.
The most important findings in the current study were:
The majority of the students (75%)were female. However, there were no significant differences by gender regarding the knowledge and attitude on PV.
Students have adequate good knowledge about PV with a score of 58% and a negative attitude with a score of 55.59%. There was a significant difference in knowledge and attitude among the students belonging to different universities. Higher knowledge scores were recorded for governmental university than private university(knowledge score of 70.8%versus 26.6%, respectively; p < 0.001). Comparison between different sections of the university, the students inthe clinical sectionhad better knowledge about PV than the students in the general section at Alexandria university and Pharos university (knowledge score of 84.2% versus 63.4% and 26.6%, respectively; p < 0.001).Students at governmental university had more attitude score than students at private university (46.4% vs 39.4% respectively)with no significant difference. The students in theclinical sectionhad a higherattitude scores than the students in thegeneral section at Alexandria university and Pharos University(attitude score of 62.1% versus 37.8% and 39.4%, respectively; p < 0.001). Inaddition, there was a correlation between knowledge and attitude. There was a highly significant trend between knowledge score along the grade.
The results of the multivariate logistic regression model revealed that the odds ofgood knowledge score among students in the Clinical section at Alexandria University was equal 18 times the odds in Pharos (OR=17.782, CI; 8.090-39.085), while the odds of knowledge score in general section was equal about 4 times the odds in Pharos University (OR=4.456; 95%CI: 2.464-8.059). Also, the odds among students with high grade as excellent was equal 4 times the odds among students with fair grade (OR=4.624, CI: 1.487-14.378).
The odds of positive attitude among students in Clinical section were nearly equal 3 times the odds among students in General section at governmental university (OR=2.606, CI: 1.521-4.466).
According to these results, pharmacy students had adequate good knowledge about PV and a negative attitude. Attitudinal changes and enhanced practical training in clinical subjects are needed.