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This is a list of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions, including hospital orders (the patient-directed part of which is referred to as sig codes).This list does not include abbreviations for pharmaceuticals or drug name suffixes such as CD, CR, ER, XT (See Time release technology § List of abbreviations for those).
The main discussion of these abbreviations in the context of drug prescriptions and other medical prescriptions is at List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions. Some of these abbreviations are best not used, as marked and explained here.
Pronunciation follows convention outside the medical field, in which acronyms are generally pronounced as if they were a word (JAMA, SIDS), initialisms are generally pronounced as individual letters (DNA, SSRI), and abbreviations generally use the expansion (soln. = "solution", sup. = "superior").
Abbreviation Meaning q: each, every (from Latin quaque) q15: every 15 minutes q6h q6° once every 6 hours q2wk: once every 2 weeks qAc Before every meal (from Latin quaque ante cibum) q.a.d. every other day (from Latin quaque altera die) QALY: quality-adjusted life year: q.AM: every day before noon (from Latin quaque die ante meridiem) q.d.
[57] It also obviously contains the signature of the prescribing medical practitioner though the word signature has two distinct meanings here and the abbreviations are sometimes used to avoid confusion. Thus sample prescriptions in modern textbooks are often presented as: Rx: medication Disp.: dispensing instructions Sig.: patient instructions
Use of abbreviations, such as those relating to the route of administration or dose of a medication, can be confusing and is the most common source of medication errors. [2] Use of some acronyms has been shown to impact the safety of patients in hospitals, and "do not use lists" have been published at a national level in the US. [4]
List of medical abbreviations: Overview; List of medical abbreviations: Latin abbreviations; List of abbreviations for medical organisations and personnel; List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions; List of optometric abbreviations
Dosage typically includes information on the number of doses, intervals between administrations, and the overall treatment period. [3] For example, a dosage might be described as "200 mg twice daily for two weeks," where 200 mg represents the individual dose, twice daily indicates the frequency, and two weeks specifies the duration of treatment.