The aim of this study was to assess the awareness of pharmacists, pharmacy students and researchers regarding “Drugs and Pregnancy”. In order to do this, a questionnaire was given to 211 attendees of a symposium held under a pharmacists' education program held at the University of Tokushima. The response rate was 108/211 (51%) and the breakdown of the respondents was students 46%, pharmacists 36% and researchers 9%. Among the 36 persons with experience of delivery, 67% had taken medicine during pregnancy, and 42% of them were worried about the embryotoxic effects of drugs. Persons with no experience of delivery were more worried about such effects than those who had experienced delivery. Before being given a prescription, 71% of the respondents had been asked about the possibility of pregnancy by a physician. On the other hand, no respondent had been asked about this by a pharmacist, suggesting that pharmacists are passive with regard to providing information about drugs and pregnancy. Information on drugs and pregnancy was mainly obtained from drug package inserts, books and pharmaceutical companies. The majority of the respondents (96%) were interested in a web site from which they could retrieve information on drug safety during pregnancy. They showed a willingness to cooperate with regard to recording medicines used during the pregnancy as well as the outcome of their pregnancies. Eighty-nine percent of the researchers and 78% of the students wanted to use teratogenicity information in drug design. All of the researchers answered that it was beneficial to share information on reproductive and developmental toxicity.
The results of our questionnaire survey showed that many people desired drug safety information during pregnancy, and were willing to share such information.
