The ISoP CommSIG for Improving Medicinal Product Risk Communication: A New Special Interest Group of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance

Abstract

Communicating to patients and healthcare providers about the risks of harm with medicines and how to use medicines safely is vital to pharmacovigilance for fulfilling its objectives—there is no or little risk avoidance/mitigation or patient safety without risk communication. Communication about risk characteristics and factors should also enable patients and healthcare providers to make informed therapeutic choices. This requires discussing risks of medicines in the context of their benefits as well as the risks of deciding against medication. Usually medicines are meant to benefit the individuals taking them. In the area of infectious diseases, however, vaccines are aimed at protecting the vaccinee and also, through repressing or eradicating the disease, protecting vulnerable individuals who cannot be vaccinated.