Reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is an extremely important procedure that affects patient safety. ADR reporting is the responsibility of every medical professional, including pharmacists. In the research, the aim of this study is to verify if pharmacists in Poland are ready to report adverse drug reactions. The research has been conducted via survey questionnaire within the tricity of Gdynia, Sopot and Gdańsk. The questionnaire consisted of thirteen questions, and every pharmacist with license to practice was allowed to participate in this study. The results indicate that Polish pharmacists assess their level of knowledge about reporting side effects at a moderate level. This may be due to the low popularity of training in this area. Moreover, the staff of community pharmacies have a lower perception of their level of knowledge about reporting ADR than do employees of hospital pharmacies and other related places (p<0.001). In addition, hospital pharmacists have more experience in ADR than those employed in community pharmacies, and pharmacists with a specialist title are more aware of the obligation to report ADR (p=0.023). Patients very rarely report side effects to pharmacists and this is indicated as the main reason for the lack of ADR reporting by this professional group. We conclude that pharmacists in Poland are not ready to report ADR, and more training is necessary.
Wrzosek et al. (2025) studied this question.