Page 65 - ITPS-8-3

INNOSC Theranostics

and Pharmacological Sciences

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Knowledge, perception, and practices of

ecopharmacovigilance among government and
private medical students in Bangladesh

2
Sadia Binte Anwar Sonia 1 , Iftekhar Hossain Chowdhury * , Kamrun Nahar 2 ,
Syeda Kaniz Fatema 2 , Farjana Haque Mitu 3 , Sadia Sultana 2 ,
Md Abdullah Al Mamun 4 , Muhammad Nurul Alam Siddiki 5 , and
Sarmin Sultana 6
1 Department of Pharmacology, Armed Forces Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2 Department of Pharmacology, Mugda Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
3 Department of Pharmacology, Shahabuddin Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
4 Department of Cardiology, Mugda Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
5 Department of Ophthalmology, Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
6 Department of Pharmacology, Gazi Medical College, Khulna, Bangladesh

*Corresponding authors:
Iftekhar Hossain Chowdhury
(chowdhuryiftekhar60@gmail.com) Abstract
Citation: Sonia SBA,
Chowdhury IH, Nahar K, et al. Given the rapid growth of the pharmaceutical industry and the increasing use
Knowledge, perception, and of medication, ecopharmacovigilance (EPV) has become an effective approach
practices of ecopharmacovigilance for managing and reducing the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals. EPV
among government and private
medical students in Bangladesh. addresses and explains the undesired environmental effects of pharmaceutical use.
INNOSC Theranostics and This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, perceptions, and practices related to
Pharmacological Sciences. the disposal of unused and expired medications among undergraduate medical
2025;8(3):59-70.
doi: 10.36922/itps.7678 students in Bangladesh. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted
over a period of 3 months, from August to October 2024, at Armed Forces Medical
Received: December 16, 2024
College, Mugda Medical College and Hospital, and Shahabuddin Medical College
1st revised: February 24, 2025 in Dhaka. A total of 300 3 - and 4 -year medical students from these medical
th
rd
2nd revised: March 25, 2025 colleges in Bangladesh completed a self-administered questionnaire. In this study,
knowledge of EPV was found to be only 27%. Overall, medical students’ perceptions
Accepted: April 1, 2025
of environmental medication contamination and EPV were encouraging. Among
Published online: April 17, 2025 those interviewed, 54.3% “strongly agreed” that leftover medications could have a
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s). negative impact on the environment. Despite knowledge of the environmental risks
This is an Open-Access article posed by pharmaceuticals, the common practice of storing medications at home
distributed under the terms until they expire and then discarding them persists. This highlights both a lack of
of the Creative Commons
AttributionNoncommercial License, knowledge and the absence of safe disposal procedures. Thus, greater efforts are
permitting all non-commercial use, needed to improve medical students’ knowledge of EPV. Respondents also expressed
distribution, and reproduction in any a preference for evidence-based and environmentally friendly methods for disposing
medium, provided the original work
is properly cited. of unwanted medications.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with Keywords: Ecopharmacovigilance; Medical students; Knowledge; Perception;
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Environment; Pharmaceuticals
affiliations.

Volume 8 Issue 3 (2025) 59 doi: 10.36922/itps.7678