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as needed PRN is pertactin, a virulence factor of the bacterium that causes pertussis: pt. perstetur: continue pulv. pulvis: powder p.v., PV per vaginam: vaginally q quaque: every, per q.1 h, q.1° quaque 1 hora: every 1 hour (can replace 1 with other numbers) q4PM at 4:00 pm (can replace 4 with other numbers) mistaken to mean every 4 hours q.a.d.
The number needed to treat (NNT) or number needed to treat for an additional beneficial outcome (NNTB) is an epidemiological measure used in communicating the effectiveness of a health-care intervention, typically a treatment with medication. The NNT is the average number of patients who need to be treated to prevent one additional bad outcome.
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").
[citation needed] Prescriptions also contain directions for the patient to follow when taking the drug. These directions are printed on the label of the pharmaceutical product. The word prescription , from pre- ('before') and script ('writing, written'), refers to the fact that the prescription is an order that must be written down before a ...
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").
Intuitively, the lower the number needed to harm, the worse the risk factor, with 1 meaning that every exposed person is harmed. NNH is similar to number needed to treat (NNT), where NNT usually refers to a positive therapeutic result and NNH to a detrimental effect or risk factor. Marginal metrics: NNT for an additional beneficial outcome (NNTB)
Second, medical roots generally go together according to language, i.e., Greek prefixes occur with Greek suffixes and Latin prefixes with Latin suffixes. Although international scientific vocabulary is not stringent about segregating combining forms of different languages, it is advisable when coining new words not to mix different lingual roots.