Farmacovigilância: um estudo sobre a formação acadêmica dos discentes de cursos da saúde de uma instituição de ensino superior

Abstract

Pharmacovigilance is a fundamental science in the field of public health, focusing on the identification, assessment, understanding, and prevention of problems associated with the use of medicines. Its activities cover a broad spectrum, encompassing all adverse events (AEs) associated with medicines. Underreporting of adverse events is a considerable challenge, often attributed to healthcare professionals' lack of understanding of the importance of reporting and the appropriate procedures for doing so. In view of this, in this dissertation we aim to examine the organization of the training process for students in health courses through documentary analysis, as well as to evaluate students' perceptions of the learning process and their understanding of pharmacovigilance. The documentary research was conducted through the analysis of the Course Pedagogical Projects (PPC) of the pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, nursing, physical therapy, physical education, and psychology courses, with an emphasis on the curriculum matrices and course syllabi. The analysis relied on the use of preselected keywords. The second phase of the research involved the application of an adapted questionnaire divided into nine sections to students in pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, nursing, physical therapy, physical education, and psychology courses regularly enrolled in the last semester of theoretical subjects, during the months of February and April 2025. The data were analyzed descriptively, considering the definitions of official documents from the World Health Organization. The analyses show that pharmacy was the course with the highest presence of curricular content and key terms related to pharmacovigilance. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the students' courses and their knowledge about pharmacovigilance, adverse drug reactions, adverse drug events, technical complaints, and quality deviations, with pharmacy students performing best in terms of specific knowledge on the subject. Despite the students' consensus on the importance of the subject, most of the courses evaluated do not offer content or disciplines focused on pharmacovigilance, highlighting the still limited academic training in pharmacovigilance.