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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 ยง List of abbreviations for those).
Contents
Capitalization and the use of periods are a matter of style. In the list, Latin is not capitalized whereas English acronyms are.
These abbreviations can be verified in reference works, both recent and older. Some of those works (such as Wyeth 1901) are so comprehensive that their entire content cannot be reproduced here. This list includes all that are frequently encountered in today's health care in English-speaking regions.
Some of these are obsolete (such as the apothecaries' units); others remain current.
Abbreviations which are deprecated by the Joint Commission are marked in red. Those abbreviations which are deprecated by other organizations, such as the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and the American Medical Association (AMA), are marked in orange.
The Joint Commission is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization which offers accreditation to hospitals and other health care organizations in the United States. While their recommendations are not binding on U.S. physicians, they are required of organizations who wish accreditation by the Joint Commission.
Similarity of handwritten letters
Especially in handwritten prescriptions or orders, and most especially in hasty handwriting (which is the usual kind), letter shape can be ambiguous. The example below compares "a" and "o" in a script where both consist of an incoming stroke, a loop from about 12 o'clock, and an outgoing stroke. They differ only in the angle of the latter.
Numerical notation
When expressing a numerical quantity, Roman numerals are commonly used in place of arabic digits so as to avoid confusion. The numbers 1 - 3 (I, II, III), usually written as upper-case Roman numerals, often have the appearance of a capital "T" or a series of capital "T's" with a dot above each "T." They are also sometimes written as lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii).