Learning Centre

Health Canada provides health professionals, consumers and patients with educational tools for reporting adverse reactions (also known as side effects) to drugs and other marketed health products used by Canadians, including:

• prescription drugs
• non-prescription drugs (including natural health products)
• biological products (including products derived from blood [fractionated blood products], biotech drugs, and therapeutic and diagnostic vaccines)
• radiopharmaceuticals.

Educational Tools for Consumers and Patients

These educational tools will make it easier for you as a consumer of drugs and other health products, or as a patient or caregiver, to take an active role in your health care.

Reporting Side Effects from your Medicine: What you need to know is a narrated, electronic (online) presentation to help consumers and patients to report their side effects.

A Guidebook is also available. This Guidebook offers five short practical learning activities that use your personal experiences and interest (in addition to the information in the online module).

Open and print the adverse reaction reporting form for marketed health products before starting the presentation.

Reporting unwanted side effects to your health care professional and/or Health Canada is a way for you to contribute to your well-being, and possibly also to that of other Canadians.

Set your own place and time to learn about reporting side effects. Contribute to Canada's national adverse reaction reporting program by adding your experiences to Health Canada's drug safety monitoring program.

Educational Tools for Health Professionals

Since 1965, health professionals have been reporting suspected adverse reactions to marketed health products to the Canadian Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Program. Today, for every adverse reaction that is reported, up to 10 others may go unreported.

Learning tools have been developed to make it easier for health professionals to report adverse reactions by increasing awareness about how to report, what to report and how adverse reaction reports contribute to health safety for all Canadians.

Health Professional Reporting of Adverse Drug Reactions is a narrated, electronic (online) presentation to help health professionals recognize and report their patients' adverse reactions to Health Canada.

Reporting of Adverse Reactions for Naturopathic Doctors helps naturopathic doctors to recognize and report adverse reactions and interactions associated with natural health products alone or in combination with other health products.

Open and print the adverse reaction reporting form for marketed health products before starting the presentation.

By reporting adverse reactions, you do your part in contributing to:

• The identification of previously unrecognized rare, or serious adverse reactions;
• Changes in product safety information; and
• International data regarding benefits, risks, and/or effectiveness.