FLORENCE (Reuters Health) - Many Italian doctors are not reporting on adverse reactions in patients, putting at risk the effectiveness of a government program that monitors drug side effects and reactions, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The survey found that only one third of Italian doctors regularly report on drug side effects and reactions. Moreover, about half of the reports, especially those by hospital doctors, are filed improperly.
The survey, conducted by Edra Medical Publishing & New Media and the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, was presented Tuesday at a healthcare forum in Cernobbio.
The Italian "pharmacovigilance" program, set up to monitor drugs after they are placed on the market, requires that doctors report adverse effects of drugs to local medical authorities, who then submit them to an Internet-based network. The data is gathered into a national database, run by the Ministry of Health.
But according to the survey, many of the 12,000 doctors interviewed seem to have confused ideas about their responsibilities.
About 30% of the interviewed doctors believed that a report must be filed only in case of extraordinary and serious side effects. But when asked what was required by the law, almost all agreed correctly on the duty to report any kind of reactions, says the survey.