The Impact of Mandatory Reporting of Non-Serious Safety Reports to EudraVigilance on the Detection of Adverse Reactions

Introduction and Objective European Union legislation has mandated the submission of European Economic Area non-serious reports to the EudraVigilance database since November 2017. As spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to medicines represent a key source of safety signals, the European Medicines Agency has undertaken this work to assess the effects of this requirement on the characteristics of the reports submitted to EudraVigilance and on the detection of adverse drug reactions through routine analyses of the database. Methods Changes in the numbers of serious and non-serious reports transmitted to EudraVigilance were examined over the period during which the legislation was implemented. The numbers and nature of potential safety signals emerging from established statistical algorithms used at the European Medicines Agency applied either to only the serious reports or to all reports in EudraVigilance were compared. Results Up to November 2017, less than 25% of European Economic Area reports in EudraVigilance were classified as non-serious, since than this figure was slightly above 60%. This change accompanied an increase in the total number of reports received. Addition of non-serious reports to the signal detection process resulted in a small overall increase in signals of disproportionate reporting with some new signals of disproportionate reporting appearing and some existing signals of disproportionate reporting disappearing; the sensitivity of the signal detection system was slightly increased and the proportion of signals of disproportionate reporting that corresponded to known adverse drug reactions (a measure of efficiency) was unchanged. Conclusions The change in legislation has led to a small increase in sensitivity, without affecting the efficiency of the routine statistical measures used. The number of non-serious reports as a proportion of reports in EudraVigilance is likely to increase over time and further monitoring of the impact on signal detection is required. Further work is also required on the qualitative impact of non-serious reports on the nature of signals detected and on their evaluation.