Prescription
Definition
- A medical prescription is an order (often in written form) issued by a qualified health care professional (e.g. physician and dentist) to a pharmacist or other therapist for a treatment (medicine or device) to be provided to their patient.
Parts of prescription
- Date
- Patient Information
- Superscription
- Inscription
- Subscription
- Signa
- Signature lines, signature, degree, brand name indication
- Prescriber information
- DEA (Drug enforcement administration) if required
- Refills
- Warnings/label
1. Date
- It helps a pharmacist to find out the date of prescribing and date of prescription for filling the prescription.
2. Name, age, sex and address of the patient
- Must be written in the prescription because it serves to identify the prescription.
- Age and sex of the patient especially in case of children, helps the pharmacist to check the prescribed dose of medication.
- Also used in dose calculation of children.
3. Superscription
- It is represented by Rx symbol.
- It is Latin word. It means you take.
4. Inscription
- This is the main part of the prescription order, contains the names and quantities of the prescribed ingredients.
- The name of each ingredient is written on a separate line along with its quantity.
5. Subscription
- This comprises direction to the pharmacist for preparing prescription.
- Which is usually ‘mix’ ‘send tablets’ or ‘capsules’ and number of doses to be dispensed.
6. Signatura or Transcription
- This consists of the direction to be given to the patient regarding the administration of drug.
- It is usually written as ‘Sig’ on the prescription.
- The instructions given in the prescription are required to be transferred to the container in which the medicament is to be dispensed, so that the patient can follow it. The instruction may include
- (a)The quantity to be taken or amount to be used.
- (b) The frequency and timing of administration or application.
- (c) The rout of administration.
- (d) The special instruction such as dilution direction
7. Refills or renewal Instruction
- Indicate either no refills or the number of refills you want (do not leave it blank). Determines maximum duration of therapy.
8. Signature, address, and registration number of the prescriber
- The prescription must bear the signature of the prescriber along with its registration number and address.
Handling of Prescription :-
The following procedure should be adopted by the pharmacist while handling the prescription for compounding and dispensing.
- Receiving
- Reading and checking
- Collecting and weighting the materials
- Compounding, labeling and packaging
Errors in prescription :-
- Abbreviations
- Name of drug
- Strength of preparation
- Dosage form of the drug prescribed
- Dose
- Instruction for the patient
- Incompatibilities
1.Abbreviations
- A Abbreviation presents a problem in understanding part of the prescription order.
2. Name of drug
- There are certain drugs whose name look or sound like those of other drugs.
- Some of the example of such drugs is as under: – Digitoxin and Digoxin
3. Strength of preparation
- The strength of the preparation should be stated by the prescriber.
- It is essential when various strengths of a product are available in market
4. Dosage form of the drug prescribed
- Many medicines are available in more than one dosage form like as liquid, tablet, capsule, etc.
5. Dose
- Unusually high or low doses should be discussed with the prescriber.
- Pediatric dosage may present. So pharmacist should consult pediatric posology to avoid an error.
- Sometime a reasonable dose is administered too frequently.
6. Instruction for the patient
- The instructions for the patient which are given in the prescription are incomplete or omitted.
- The quantity of the drug to be taken, the frequent and timing of administration and route of administration should be clearly given in the prescription so as to avoid any confusion.
7. Incompatibilities
- It is essential to check check that there are no pharmaceutical or therapeutic incompatibilities in a prescribed preparation and that different medicines prescribed for the same patient do not interact with each other to produce any harm to patient.
