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Generally abbreviated to "P.R.N." or "PRN", pro re nata refers to the administration of prescribed medication whose timing is left to the patient (in the case of patient-controlled analgesia), nurse, or caregiver, as opposed to medication that is taken according to a fixed (primarily daily) schedule (a.k.a. "scheduled dosage").
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.
prn PRN: as necessary (from Latin pro re nata) (if used in chronic pain control, sometimes disparagingly termed "pain relief nil") as needed Prog: prognosis PROM: prelabor rupture of membranes partial range of motion [1] PRP: panretinal photocoagulation platelet-rich plasma progressive rubella panencephalitis: PRRE: purine-rich response element PRV
PRN pro re nata "for the thing born" As used in standard medical jargon, PRN is understood to mean "as needed". This reading of the abbreviation implies that the delivery of the prescription (by a suitable person, following a medications protocol) is done in a reactive, passive way, e.g., "when that happens, do this".
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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").
Lastly, you have to be safety conscious, which means placing barriers over or around things like pools, closing toilet lids, removing or covering sharp objects and edges, blocking open stairways ...