Prescription Labeling Format

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Wed, 09/10/2025 - 19:52
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James Gibson
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Prescription Labeling Format

Hello, my institution is evaluating whether to remove the total dose from our outpatient prescription labels and/or after visit summaries (AVS), and instead only include the number of tablets/milliliters/etc the patient should take. The concern is that patients may misread "5 mg" as "5 tablets" and take the wrong dose, but we also have some concerns with not communicating the total dose to the patient.

Our current formatting for prescription labels and AVS is the same: Take one tablet (5 mg) by mouth daily.

We are considering changing to: Take one tablet by mouth daily.

What does your institution do, and do you take the same approach for your AVS and prescription labels, or do you display this information differently between these two sources?

I'm not able to find any specific recommendations from ISMP on how best to express this information on the prescription label. However, item #39 in the 2025 version of the ISMP Guidelines for Safe Electronic Communication of Medication Information seems to recommend that the AVS should list both total dose and number of tablets.

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