Background: Drug hypersensitivity reactions (DHRs) is commonly encountered in clinical practice. This condition requires sufficient knowledge of health care professionals (HCPs) carrying for these patients.
Objective: To assess the awareness, practices and attitudes to DHRs among HCPs in Armenia and to identify main problems and take appropriate measures.
Materials and methods: The 23-item questionnaire covering 3 domains - knowledge, practice and attitude - was developed and applied in an anonymous survey. Data were analyzed according to specialty, experience, type of medical facility and regions using Pearson's χ2 and Fisher's exact tests.
Results: A total of 381 respondents with response rate of 63.5 % took part in the survey. The gaps in knowledge/awareness about DHRs diagnosis and management, as well as in practical approaches were identified. The differences depending on specialty, duration of HCPs experience, working place both by geographical region and medical facility type were revealed. According to attitude rates the importance of creating a national registry of patients with severe DHRs (>95.0 %) and the need to introduce a clear algorithm for managing these patients (99.5 %) are highlighted.
Conclusions: Targeted educational programs are needed for better understanding of DHRs. The implementation of the national guidelines needs improvement. The approach used can be recommended for study of the problems in other areas of healthcare (Tab. 4, Fig. 2, Ref. 15).
Keywords: attitude; awareness; drug hypersensitivity reactions health care professionals.; knowledge; practice.