ADR Recording & Monitoring
ADR Recording & Monitoring
ADR Recording & Monitoring
Guidelines for
Detecting & Reporting
Adverse Drug Reactions
This Guideline for the Jordan Pharmacovigilance System has been developed to complement
and support the efforts of orienting all healthcare professionals on the important concept of
Pharmacovigilance. It gives an overview of what Pharmacovigilance is, how to detect and
classify ADR‟s. It also describes the reporting system to the Jordan Pharmacovigilance Centre in
the context of the Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSR). The reporting requirements stated in
this guideline are based mainly on the guidelines of International Conference for Harmonization
(ICH), the European Medicine Evaluation Agency (EMEA) the United States Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), and Jordan Food and Drug Administration pharmacovigilance guidelines.
Its ultimate goal is to enhance efforts in ensuring that safe, efficacious, and quality medicines are
made available for all Jordanians.
All healthcare professionals are encouraged to actively participate in Pharmacovigilance and to
report all suspected adverse drug reactions to help safeguard the patients' health.
Table of contents
Abbreviations ................................................................................................................... 5
What is Pharmacovigilance? ............................................................................................ 6
Adverse drug reaction (ADR) Vs. Adverse Events ......................................................... 6
Importance of Pharmacovigilance ....................................................................................6
Objectives of Pharmacovigilance .....................................................................................7
WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring ..................................................... 7
Types of Adverse Drug Reactions ................................................................................... 9
Introduction to the Jordan Pharmacovigilance system ....................................................10
Spontaneous reporting of Adverse Drug Reactions .........................................................11
Individual Case Safety Report (ICSR) .............................................................................11
Who should report .......................................................................................................... .11
The Yellow Card and the Online Reporting ....................................................................11
Characteristics of good case report ................................................................................. 12
What should be reported ................................................................................................. 15
How to recognize ADRs in patients ............................................................................... 16
Seriousness of Adverse drug reactions ........................................................................... 17
Expectedness of the adverse drug reaction ..................................................................... 18
What are the benefits of these reports for the patients and the health care providers? ... 18
Will reporting have any negative consequences on the reporter? .................................. 20
How to obtain the reporting form ................................................................................... 20
How to submit ADR report ............................................................................................ 20
Remember: the Basic principles of efficient reporting .................................................. 21
Processing of Adverse drug reactions reports ………………………………………….23
What happens to the reported ADRs? ............................................................................ 23
Causality assessment ...................................................................................................... 23
Glossary of important terms used in Pharmacovigilance ............................................... 23
References ...................................................................................................................... 29
Annex I: Yellow Card English ....................................................................................... 30
Annex II: Yellow Card Arabic ........................................................................................ 31
Annex III: Our Publications ............................................................................ …………32
Abbreviations
What is Pharmacovigilance?
According to the WHO, Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection,
assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other medicine related
problem.
Adverse drug reaction is a response which is noxious and unintended, and which occurs at doses
normally used in humans for the prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy of disease, or for the
modification of physiological function.
Adverse Event is any untoward medical occurrence that may present during treatment with a
pharmaceutical product but which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with this
medicinal product.
An adverse drug reaction, is distinguished from the adverse event by; the former has a suspicion
of a causal relationship between the medicinal product and the reaction, i.e. judged as being at
least possibly related to the reaction by the reporting or the reviewing health professional, while
the adverse event does not necessarily have such causal relationship.
Importance of Pharmacovigilance
The information collected during the pre-marketing phase is incomplete with regard to adverse
drug reactions and this is mainly because:
Patients used in clinical trials are limited in number and are not representative to the
public at large. In addition, the conditions of use of medicines differ from those in
clinical practice and the duration is limited.
Information about rare but serious adverse reactions, chronic toxicity, use in special
groups (such as children, the elderly or pregnant women) or drug interactions is often
incomplete.
Therefore, post-marketing surveillance is important to permit detection of less common but
sometimes very serious ADRs.
Thus, post-marketing surveillance is important to permit detection of less common, but
sometimes very serious ADRs.
Therefore health professionals worldwide should report on ADRs as it can save lives of their
patients and others.
Objectives of Pharmacovigilance
To improve patient care and safety in relation to the use of medicines, and all medical
and paramedical interventions.
To improve public health and safety in relation to the use of medicines.
To Detect problems related to the use of medicines and communicate the findings in a
timely manner,
To contribute to the assessment of benefit, effectiveness and risk of medicines,
encouraging their safe, rational and more effective (including cost-effective) use.
To promote understanding, education and clinical training in pharmacovigilance and its
effective communication to health professionals and the public.
As a means of pooling existing data on ADRs, WHO‟s Programme for International Drug
Monitoring was started in 1968. Initially a pilot project in 10 countries with established national
reporting systems for ADRs, the network has since expanded significantly as more countries
worldwide developed national Pharmacovigilance centers for the recording of ADRs.
Currently, many countries participate in the programme, which is coordinated by WHO together
with its collaborating centre in Uppsala, Sweden (UMC). The collaborating centre is responsible
for maintaining the global ADR database, Vigibase.
The WHO Collaborating Centre analyses the reports in the database to:
Through an advisory committee, WHO plays an important role in the provision of expert
advice on all matters relating to the safety of medicines. The Committee also exists to facilitate
consistent policies and action among member countries and to advise those who may be
concerned about action taken in another country.
Protecting patient
confidentiality
Rational Drug Use and Pharmacovigilance Department- JFDA 8
www.jfda.jo
Guidelines for Detecting & Reporting Adverse Drug Reactions In Jordan- 2014 Version 01
Individual Case Safety Reports
Type A effects
Augmented pharmacologic effects - dose dependent and predictable (medicine actions) are those
which are due to (exaggerated) pharmacological effects. Type A effects tend to be fairly
common, dose related (i.e. more frequent or severe with higher doses) and may often be avoided
by using doses which are appropriate to the individual patient. Such effects can usually be
reproduced and studied experimentally and are often already identified before marketing.
Type B effects
Bizarre effects (or idiosyncratic) - dose independent and unpredictable (Patient reactions)
characteristically occur in only a minority of patients and display little or no dose relationship.
They are generally rare and unpredictable, and may be serious and are notoriously difficult to
study. Type B effects are either immunological or nonimmunological and occur only in patients,
with - often unknown - predisposing conditions.
Immunological reactions may range from rashes, anaphylaxis, vasculitis, inflammatory organ
injury, to highly specific autoimmune syndromes. Also non-immunological Type B effects occur
in a minority of predisposed, intolerant, patients, e.g. because of an inborn error of metabolism or
acquired deficiency in a certain enzyme, resulting in an abnormal metabolic pathway or
accumulation of a toxic metabolite. Examples are chloramphenicol caused aplastic anaemia and
isoniazid caused hepatitis.
Type C effects
Chronic effects refer to situations where the use of a medicine, often for unknown reasons,
increases the frequency of a "spontaneous" disease. Type C effects may be both serious and
common (and include malignant tumours) and may have pronounced effects on public health.
Type C effects may be coincidental and often concern long term effects; there is often no
suggestive time relationship and the connection may be very difficult to prove.
Type D effects
Delayed effects (dose independent)
Carcinogenicity (e.g., immunosuppressants)
Teratogenicity (e.g., fetal hydantoin syndrome)
Type E effects
End-of-treatment effects
Type F effects
Failure of therapy
Jordan Pharmacovigilance Center (JPC) has been established in 2001 within drug directorate/
Ministry of Health to be responsible for the collection and evaluation of information on
pharmaceutical products marketed in Jordan with particular reference to adverse reactions.
Furthermore, JPC is taking all appropriate measures to:
JPC is handling these pharmacovigilance data in a way, which is compatible with the procedures
undertaken by WHO Collaborating Center for International Drug Monitoring in order that
pertinent data may be transferred between JPC and WHO center.
The Spontaneous reporting structure is the voluntary and the most common way through which
the regulatory bodies collect ADR information for medicines once they are on the market.
In Jordan the Yellow Card (a reporting form described below) is used by JPC to collect
information on ADRs from healthcare professionals and members of the public. Each yellow
card concerns an Individual Case experienced ADRs, thus it is also called Individual Case
Safety Report (ICSR).
A document providing the most complete information related to an individual case at a certain
point of time. An individual case is the information provided by a primary reporter to describe
suspected adverse reaction(s) related to the administration of one or more medicinal products
to an individual patient at a particular point of time.
For the suspected adverse drug reaction to be reported; a unified form should be used to facilitate
the reporting and to insure that the required information is included; therefore JPC has developed
this unified reporting form (attached), it was adapted from the international Yellow Card.
This yellow card is to be used by the healthcare professionals and the patients while the
Marketing authorization holders (MAH) should report the ICSRs using the International CIOMs
form.
In addition, for most reporting convenience, a web-based dynamic reporting module was
established for the easy report completion and online submission.
The quality of the reports is critical for appropriate evaluation of the relationship between the
product and adverse reactions, thus good case reports include the following elements:
1. Description of the adverse reaction or disease experience, including time to onset of signs or
symptoms and the seriousness of the reaction/s;
2. Suspected and concomitant medicines details (i.e., Name, concentration, dose, dosage form,
rout of administration, indication for use, duration of use& batch number especially for
vaccines), including over-the-counter medications, dietary supplements, and recently
discontinued medications;
3. Patient characteristics, including the name or initials, age, sex, weight, and baseline medical
condition prior to product therapy, co-morbid conditions, use of concomitant medications,
relevant family history of disease, and presence of other risk factors;
4. Documentation of the diagnosis of the reactions, including methods used to make the
diagnosis;
5. Clinical course of the reaction and patient outcomes (e.g., hospitalization or death);
6. Relevant therapeutic measures and laboratory data at baseline, during therapy, and subsequent
to therapy, including blood levels, as appropriate;
7. Information about response to dechallenge and rechallenge; and
8. Any other relevant information (e.g., other details relating to the reaction or information on
benefits received by the patient, if important to the assessment of the reaction).
The reporting form should be obtained from JPC, and at least four sections should be completed
to have a valid report. In other words these four sections are the minimum information which
allows the case report to be valid subsequently to be entered onto the national ADR database and
become available for signal generation in order to facilitate evaluation of cases.
When one or more of these information are missing, the case should be followed up in order to
validate the report and complete its processing as described above.
The four sections to validate the individual case report (ICSR) are as follow:
An identifiable patient
Patient initials
Sex
Weight
Age at time of reaction or date of birth
Suspected medicine
Name (INN and brand name)
Strength (concentration)
Dose, Frequency
Dosage form
Route of administration
Indication for use
Duration of use, date started, date stopped
Batch number (especially for vaccines)
An identifiable reporter
Name, initials
Address
Contact details
Qualification (if healthcare professional)
If it is suspected that a patient has experienced an ADR it should be reported using a Yellow
Card. ADRs resulting from prescription medicines, herbal remedies, and OTC medications can
all be reported.. Causality does not need to have been established.
For new medicines report all the suspected reactions, including minor ones. (medicines
are considered “new” up to five years after marketing authorization)
For established medicines or well-known medicines report all serious or unusual
suspected adverse reactions, (see definition of a serious reaction, expectedness of
reactions.
Report if an increased frequency of a given reaction is suspected.
Report all suspected ADRs associated with drug-drug, drug food or drug-food
supplements (including herbal and complementary products) interactions.
Report when suspected ADRs are associated with medicine withdrawals.
Report ADRs occurring from overdose or medication error.
Report ADRs in special fields of interest such as medicine abuse and medicine use in
pregnancy (teratogenicity) and during lactation.
In children under the age of 18, all suspected ADRs occurring, should be reported
regardless of whether the medicine is licensed for use in children. Children are often not
exposed to medicines during clinical trials and many medicines are used in children even
if they are not licensed for this purpose. This means that monitoring of medicine safety is
particularly important for this age group.
As soon as possible
Reports on all suspected adverse reactions
ADRs are difficult and sometimes impossible to distinguish from the disease being treated
since they may act through the same physiological and pathological pathways. However, the
following approach is helpful in assessing possible drug-related ADRs:
1. Ensure that the medicine ordered is the medicine received and actually taken by the patient
at the dose advised.
2. Take a proper history and do a proper examination of patient
A full medicine and medical history should be taken
An ADR should be your first differential diagnosis at all times
Ask if this adverse reaction can be explained by any other cause e.g. patient's underlying
disease, other medicines including over-the-counter medicines or traditional medicines,
toxins or foods
It is essential that the patient is thoroughly investigated to decide what the actual cause
of any new medical problem is.
A medicine-related cause must be considered, especially when other causes do not
explain the patient's condition
3. Establish time relationships by answering the following question: Did the ADR occur
immediately following the medicine administration?
Some reactions occur immediately after the medicine has been given while others take time to
develop.
4. Carry out a thorough physical examination with appropriate laboratory investigations if
necessary:
Remember: only a few medicines produce distinctive physical signs
Exceptions include medicine eruptions, steroid-induced dermal atrophy, acute extra-
pyramidal reactions
Laboratory tests are important if the medicine is considered essential in improving patient
care or if the laboratory tests results will improve management of the patient.
Try to describe the reaction as clearly as possible- Where possible, provide an accurate
diagnosis
5. Effect of Dechallenge and Rechallenge should be determined
Dechallenge (withdrawal of the suspected medicine):
Positive dechallenge is the improvement / resolution of ADR when the suspected
medicine is withdrawn in a strong, though not conclusive indication of medicine induced
reaction.
A serious adverse event or reaction is any untoward medical occurrence associated with the use
of a medical product in a patient that at any dose, the outcome is one of the following:
1. Death
Report if the patient's death is suspected as being a direct outcome of the adverse reaction.
2. Life-Threatening
Report if the patient was at substantial risk of dying at the time of the adverse reaction or it
is suspected that the use or continued use of the product would result in the patient's death.
3. Hospitalization (initial or prolonged)
Report if admission to the hospital or prolongation of a hospital stay results because of the
suspected adverse reaction.
4. Disability
Report if the adverse reaction resulted in a significant, persistent, or permanent disability/
incapacity; (change, impairment, damage, or disruption in the patient's body function/structure,
physical activities, or quality of life).s Commonly Repo
5. Congenital Anomaly
Report if there are suspicions that exposure to a medical product prior to conception or during
pregnancy resulted in an adverse outcome in the child (birth defect).
6. Medically important event or reaction
Medical and scientific judgment should be exercised in deciding whether other situations
should be considered serious such as important medical events that might NOT be
The expectedness of the reaction is assessed in accordance with the approved product
information; the reaction is defined as expected if it is included in package insert or the
summary of product characteristics (SPC).
On the other hand the unexpectedness of the reaction includes the following:
The reaction is not included in the package insert or the summary of product
characteristics (SPC).
The reaction is included in the package insert or the summary of product characteristics
(SPC) but showed changes in its known frequency
The reaction is included in the package insert or the summary of product characteristics
(SPC) but showed changes in its known severity i.e. the change in the severity of a
known adverse drug reaction is considered as unexpected to that medicine.
What are the benefits of these reports for the patients and the health care providers?
The reporting by the healthcare provider and patient is completely voluntarily, they will stand to
benefit as:
Improvement on the quality of care offered to patients
Reduction of medicine related problems leading to better treatment outcome
Improved patient confidence in professional practice.
Access to feedback information on medicine related problems reported within the country
and internationally
Satisfaction for the fulfillment of a moral and professional obligation
The outcome of the report, together with any important or relevant information relating to
the reported reaction, will be communicated to the reporter as appropriate.
The details of the report are stored in a confidential database at the JPC and the
analyzed report will be sent to the Uppsala Monitoring Center (UMC).
The names of the reporters or any other health professionals named on the report and the
patient will be removed before any details about a specific adverse drug reaction is used
or communicated to others.
A web based dynamic reporting module is available at JPC website to be completed and
submitted online. (www.jfda.jo)
At each hospital a Pharmacovigilance coordinator is assigned (preferred to be the clinical
pharmacist, or the medicine information specialist), the reporting forms (yellow cards) are
available at the hospital Pharmacovigilance coordinator for the hospital health care professional.
Special stand for yellow cards is to be available in the community pharmacies (mainly for
patients, community pharmacists & may be for the nearby private clinics).
After filling the ADR reporting form; All ADR reports can be sent to the JPC by:
Submit on-line: through the JFDA/ JPC website, a web based dynamic reporting module
is available for completion online.
E-mail : special account for ADR reporting, [email protected]
By Hand: contact person in hospitals, by pharmaceutical distribution companies….
There is collaboration between JPC and some pharmaceutical distribution companies to
participate in collecting the filled ICSR then forward them to JPC.
While other reports can be submitted on regular basis (every month) by any of the above means.
Reporter Serious ICSRs Other ICSRs
In-time reporting
Report the suspected adverse drug reaction as soon as it occurs- the report involves less
work and is more accurate.
Send the report quickly to the Jordan Pharmacovigilance center.
Ensure that each reported Suspected ADR Reporting Form is filled in accurately and with
all the necessary information, as much as is available to you. This is very important for
assessing the causality of the medicine to have caused that reaction.
Remember the 4 basic components that make a report reliable are:
i. An identifiable patient
ii. An identifiable health-care professional
iii. An identifiable Adverse reaction or product problem
iv. An identifiable medicine (suspected)
If the above information is missing, the report may not be useful.
1. The information obtained from the report will be used to promote safe use of medicines in the
local, national and international levels.
2. The submitted report will be entered into the national database of adverse drug reactions and
be analyzed on a regular basis.
A well - completed and duly submitted ADR reported may result in:
Additional investigations into the use of the medicine in Jordan
Appropriate changes in the package insert
Change the schedule of the medicine
Enhancing educational initiatives to improve the safe use of that medicine
Other regulatory and health promotion interventions as the situation may warrant
including withdrawal / recall.
Causality assessment
Causality assessment is the method by which the extent of relationship between a medicine and a
suspected reaction is established i.e. to attribute clinical events to medicines in individual
patients or in case reports
The WHO scale of assessment and the Naranjo's scale are the most commonly used scales.
Clinical Trial
A systematic study on pharmaceutical products in human subjects (including patients and other
volunteers) in order to discover or verify the effects of and/or identify any adverse reaction to
investigational products, and/or to study the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion
of the products with the objective of ascertaining their efficacy and safety.
Clinical trials are generally classified into Phases: I to IV. Phase IV trials are studies performed
after marketing of the pharmaceutical product. They are carried out on the basis of the product
characteristics for which the marketing authorization was granted and are normally in the form
of post-marketing surveillance.
Cohort Study
A study that identifies defined populations and follows them forward in time, examining their
rates of disease. A cohort study generally identifies and compares exposed patients to unexposed
patients or to patients who receive a different exposure.
Causality assessment
The evaluation of the likelihood that a medicine was the causative agent of an observed adverse
reaction. Causality assessment is usually made according established algorithms.
Drug/ Medicine
Any substance in a pharmaceutical product that is used to modify or explore physiological
systems or pathological states for the benefit of the recipient. The term drug/medicinal product is
used in a wider sense to include the whole formulated and registered product, including the
presentation and packaging, and the accompanying information.
Drug Alerts
The action of notifying a wider audience than the initial information holder(s) of a suspected
association between a drug and an adverse reaction. Note that the term is used in different
contexts that can be confusing, for example, an alert may be from a manufacturer to a regulator
or from a regulator to the public.
Dechallenge
The withdrawal of a medicine from a patient; the point at which the continuity, reduction or
disappearance of adverse effects may be observed.
Lack of Efficacy
Unexpected failure of a medicine to produce the intended effect as determined by previous
scientific investigation.
Pharmacoepidemiology
The study of the use and effects of medicines in large numbers of people.
Pharmacovigilance
The science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of
adverse effects or any other medicine-related problem.
Rechallenge
The point at which a medicine is again given to a patient after its previous withdrawal. (see
Dechallenge)
Record Linkage
Method of assembling information contained in two or more records, e.g., in different sets of
medical charts, and in vital records such as birth and death certificates. This makes it possible to
relate significant health events that are remote from one another in time and place.
Death
Is life-threatening
Requires inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization
Persistent or significant disability/incapacity
Congenital Anomaly
Medically important event or reaction
To ensure no confusion or misunderstanding of the difference between the terms ‘serious’ and
‘severe’, the following note of clarification is provided:
The term „severe‟ is not synonymous with serious. In the English language, „severe‟ is used to
describe the intensity (severity) of a specific reaction (as in mild, moderate or severe); the
reaction itself, however, may be of relatively minor medical significance (such as severe
headache).
Seriousness (not severity) which is based on patient/reaction outcome or action criteria serves as
guide for defining regulatory reporting obligations.
Side Effect
Any unintended effect of a pharmaceutical product occurring at doses normally used in humans,
which is related to the pharmacological properties of the medicine.
Signal
Reported information on a possible causal relationship between an adverse reaction and a drug,
the relationship being unknown or incompletely documented previously. Usually more than a
single report is required to generate a signal, depending upon the seriousness of the reaction and
the quality of the reaction and the quality of the information.
Spontaneous Reporting
A system whereby case reports of adverse drug reactions are voluntarily submitted from health
professionals and pharmaceutical manufacturers to the national regulatory authority.
References:
Safety of Medicines, A guide to detecting and reporting adverse drug reactions. World
Health Organization (WHO) Geneva 2002.
Safety Monitoring of Medicinal Products, Guidelines for setting up and running a
Pharmacovigilance Centre. the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (the UMC), WHO
Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring, 2000.
VOLUME 9A -of The Rules Governing Medicinal Products in the European Union–
Guidelines on Pharmacovigilance for Medicinal Products for Human Use, (EMEA) 2008
ICH Topic E2E Pharmacovigilance Planning (Pvp), European Medicines Agency, June
2005
ICH Topic E2D, Definitions and standards for expedited reporting, November 2003
Good Pharmacovigilance Practices and Pharmacoepidemiologic Assessment, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration, Center for
Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
(CBER). March 2005.
Pharmacovigilance guidance for countries participating in AMFm phase 1, WHO-MMV
joint technical consultation on active pharmacovigilance monitoring with a special focus
on AMFm, WHO April 2009
Procedure for the SFDA on the undertaking of Pharmacovigilance activities, Saudi Food
and Drug Authority.
Guidelines for detecting and reporting adverse drug reactions (Egyptian
Pharmacovigilance Center), 2010
Pharmacovigilance guideline for adverse drug reaction (JFDA), 2010
2014