Assessment of Consumer Awareness on Medical Device Adverse Events in a Community Centered Study

Materiovigilance is the study and follow up of incidents that might result from the use of medical devices. All the Medical devices may have certain degree of risk and can cause some problems under specific circumstances. A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted to assess and evaluate the knowledge, Attitude and Practice of materiovigilance among consumers. This study was carried out for a period of six months at a tertiary care teaching hospital and community with a sample size of 150 consumers. Data was collected from consumer in hospital and community. Data was collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics like total numbers, percentage and mean. Microsoft words and Excel have been used to generate graphs and tables. A total of 150 samples were collected, from the consumers who visited NMCH & RC, Raichur and the community visit. Most of the consumers 83 (55.3%) were aged 18 -28 years. Male were more 99(66%) and females were only 51(34%). Majority of consumers that is 56(37.3%) were Students. Out of 150 consumers, about 127(84.6%) consumers don’t know what is materiovigilance and only 33(22%) known on materiovigilance. Only 63(43.3%) consumers believe there is a need for more public education and awareness campaigns about MV and about 87(58%) consumers have not various educational interventions and proper training are necessary to promote the reporting of medical device induced adverse events. It is found that majority of consumers don’t have knowledge on medical devices and adverse events associated with it and were unaware of the term materiovigilance. Positive attitude was noted but reporting practices and awareness of MDAEs were very less. Therefore, there is a need to increase consumers awareness in medical device adverse event reporting.