Prescription Abbreviations in India: Meanings and Safe Prescribing

Grouped by what they're used for. Spelling and capitalisation vary a little between clinics; the meaning is what matters. This is meant as a reference for doctors, medical students, pharmacists and clinic staff — follow your own institution's prescribing policy for anything it covers.

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How often

Abbreviation	Meaning	Latin
OD	Once a day	omni die
BD / BID	Twice a day	bis in die
TDS / TID	Three times a day	ter die sumendum
QID / QDS	Four times a day	quater in die
HS	At bedtime	hora somni
STAT	Immediately, as a one-off	statim
SOS / PRN	When needed	si opus sit / pro re nata
QH, Q4H, Q6H…	Every hour / every 4, 6 hours…	quaque hora

"Every other day" is deliberately left out of this table — see why in abbreviations to avoid below.

Timing around food

Abbreviation	Meaning	Latin
AC	Before food	ante cibum
PC	After food	post cibum
Empty stomach	No food before or shortly after	—

Route

Abbreviation	Meaning
PO	By mouth
IV	Into a vein
IM	Into a muscle
SC / SQ	Under the skin
SL	Under the tongue
PR	Per rectum
PV	Per vagina
Top.	Applied to the skin

Dosage forms and other common marks

Abbreviation	Meaning
Tab	Tablet
Cap	Capsule
Syp	Syrup
Susp	Suspension
Inj	Injection
Oint	Ointment
Gtt	Drops
Rx	"Take" / the prescription itself
Sig	Labelling instructions, "write on the label"
Disp	Dispense (how much to give)
NPO	Nothing by mouth

⚠ Abbreviations to avoid

These have caused real, reported dosing errors, almost always from handwriting that's misread. The source is the ISMP's List of Error-Prone Abbreviations, Symbols, and Dose Designations, compiled from errors reported to its national program. Write these out in full instead.

Abbreviation	Intended meaning	Why it's risky	Write instead
OD / o.d.	Once daily	In eye prescriptions, OD means right eye (oculus dexter), and it's easily confused with QD ("every day") when handwritten	"daily", or "right eye" if that's what's meant
QOD / Q.O.D.	Every other day	Misread as QD (daily) or QID (four times daily), especially if the "O" is unclear	"every other day"
HS	At bedtime	Also used by some for "half-strength", so the two meanings can be confused	"bedtime", or "half-strength" if that's what's meant
U / u	Unit(s)	Misread as a zero or a four (4U seen as 40), or as "cc"	"unit(s)"
IU	International unit(s)	Misread as "IV" (intravenous) or the number 10	"international units" or "units"
Trailing zero, e.g. 5.0 mg	5 mg	Misread as 50 mg if the decimal point isn't seen	"5 mg", no trailing zero
No leading zero, e.g. .5 mg	0.5 mg	Misread as 5 mg if the decimal point isn't seen	"0.5 mg", with the leading zero

This is a short, India-prescribing-relevant list, not the full ISMP document — it also covers drug-name abbreviations and ear/eye codes (AD/AS/AU vs OD/OS/OU) that are outside this page's scope. See the source PDF above for the complete list.

If you prescribe digitally, most of these mistakes disappear on their own: a typed, legible line leaves no ambiguity about whether that's a zero or the letter O. See how to create a digital prescription.