Harnessing Evidence on Adverse drug withdrawal events following Deprescribing through the Pharmacovigilance system (HEAD-P)

Deprescribing (reducing or stopping unnecessary or harmful medications) is an important strategy to reduce the risk of medication harm – a significant and growing challenge for health systems as acknowledged by the World Health Organization.

The aim of HEAD-P is to establish the current evidence base on adverse drug withdrawal events (ADWEs) and explore how this can be enhanced via the pharmacovigilance system.

HEAD-P consists of 4 research objectives: to assess the rate of ADWEs in published trials of deprescribing; to examine the incidence of adverse events reporting related to ADWEs; to identify and review all recommendations related to the monitoring, detection, and reporting of ADWEs; and to investigate healthcare professional, patient, and policymaker perspectives on the integration of ADWE reporting in the pharmacovigilance system.

The following research approaches will be employed: an umbrella review of systematic reviews, disproportionality analysis of key pharmacovigilance databases, a scoping review of sources of guidance, and qualitative semi-structured interviews.

This innovative research will help address the significant gap in our knowledge of ADWE occurrence and will stimulate future studies and innovations.

Moreover, this fellowship will provide me with valuable scientific (protocol development, quantitative data analysis relevant to pharmacovigilance data, qualitative research methods, data management, and synthesis skills) and transferrable (grant writing, research communication, and supervision and mentoring skills) skills.

It will also provide me with valuable international, intersectoral, and interdisciplinary experience, and allow me to develop leaderships skills.

The skills and experience I will gain by completing this Fellowship in the host organisation (RCSI), will help me achieve my ultimate career goal – to become a leader in pharmacovigilance research and development in academia or a medicines regulatory agency.