Exploring Adverse Drug Reactions and Their Social and Psychological Consequences

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) remain a substantial public health concern, contributing significantly to morbidity, mortality, and healthcare utilization. While existing pharmacovigilance research has largely emphasized clinical outcomes and surveillance mechanisms, considerably less attention has been paid to the social and psychological consequences of ADRs for patients and healthcare professionals. This qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring how pharmacists perceive and navigate the psychological, ethical, and safety-related dimensions of ADRs in real-world practice. The study employed a focus group design involving ten licensed pharmacists recruited from a state pharmacy association meeting. Participants received guiding questions in advance and engaged in facilitated discussion addressing patient psychological responses to ADRs, professional emotional and ethical challenges, and attributional interpretations of causality and responsibility. Thematic analysis revealed that ADR-related uncertainty frequently produces persistent patient anxiety, hypervigilance toward bodily sensations, and erosion of trust in medications and healthcare systems, with direct implications for medication adherence and safety. Pharmacists reported experiencing moral distress, emotional exhaustion, and reluctance to initiate difficult conversations when constrained by inefficient reporting systems and fear of blame. Attributional processes, both among patients and pharmacists, emerged as critical determinants of emotional responses, trust, and engagement with care. These findings suggest that ADRs should be understood not only as biomedical events but as psychologically mediated experiences with downstream safety and public health implications. Integrating structured uncertainty communication, supportive professional cultures, and psychologically informed pharmacovigilance practices may enhance patient trust, improve reporting accuracy, and strengthen population-level medication safety.