The pattern of abbreviation use in prescriptions: a way forward in eliminating error-prone abbreviations and...

Inappropriate abbreviations used in prescriptions have led to medication errors. We investigated the use of error-prone and other unapproved abbreviations in prescriptions, and assessed the attitudes of pharmacists on this issue.

A reference list of error-prone abbreviations was developed. Prescriptions of outpatients and specialty clinic patients in a teaching hospital in Sri Lanka were reviewed during one month. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to assess attitudes of pharmacists.

3370 drug items (989 prescriptions) were reviewed. The mean (standard deviation) number of abbreviations per prescription was 5.9 (3.5). The error-prone abbreviations used in the hospital were, μg (microgram), mcg (microgram), u (units), cc (cubic centimeter), OD (once a day), @ sign, d (days/daily), m (morning) and n (night), and among all prescriptions reviewed, they were used at a rate of 17.4%, 0.1%, 1.9%, 0.2%, 0.2%, 4.9%, 23.5%, 4.4% and 15.8% respectively. Among the 103 types of abbreviations observed, 71 were not standard acceptable abbreviations. Multiple abbreviations were used to indicate a single drug item/ instruction (N = 7). The abbreviation 'd' was used to denote 'daily' as well as 'days'. All pharmacists believed that using error-prone abbreviations will always (5.3%) or sometimes (94.7%) lead to medication errors.

Error-prone abbreviations and many other unapproved abbreviations are frequently used in hospitals. There is a need to educating health care professionals on this issue and introduce an in-house error-prone abbreviation list for their guidance.