Writing prescription instructions in Hindi: phrases that patients understand

The medicine names on a prescription are written for the chemist. The instructions are written for someone else: the patient, or the son who sorts out his mother’s tablets at home, days after the consultation, with no doctor to ask. Those lines should be in the language that reader thinks in. Below are phrases you can copy, each with its English meaning, and the words that trip patients up.

Why write the instructions in Hindi?

Hindi is the mother tongue of 52.83 crore people, 43.63% of India, according to the Census of India 2011, which counts Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and other mother tongues under Hindi. The evidence from Indian OPDs is consistent:

• In a study of 500 patients in the medicine OPD of a New Delhi public teaching hospital, Hindi was the main language for 99.6% and 75.2% could not read English. Most knew the basics, but only 1.8% knew everything about the medicines they had been prescribed. Patients who could not read English, and those whose doctor told them only in writing, knew less.
• At a government hospital in Kolkata, 96% of prescriptions were legible, yet only 40% of patients had a good grasp of how often to take their medicines, though every one of them could read English and Bengali. The authors suggest the reason is frequency abbreviations such as BD, which are not explained to patients, and the patients’ own suggestions included prescriptions in their own language.
• In a review of 400 outpatient prescriptions at an Indian tertiary care hospital, instructions for use were written for only 17.76% of the medicines.

The World Health Organization’s Guide to Good Prescribing points the same way: few prescriptions are still written in Latin and “the local language is preferred”, and the directions for the patient “should be given in lay language”, without abbreviations or “as directed”. The same rules hold for any language your patients read. This guide uses Hindi.

How to write one clear line

Keep the same order on every line: how much, when, before or after food, how long, then any warning. Put the medicine’s name first, as it appears on the strip. These lines are examples written for this guide:

Three habits make these lines work. Write amounts as digits with a unit (1 गोली, 5 ml, 2 बूँद, 2 पफ़), because the strip and the measuring cup use the same digits. Name the day and the date rather than कल or परसों. And keep one medicine to a line, so a family member reading aloud never mixes two up.

Phrases for when and how often

An “only when needed” line is incomplete without the last two limits. WHO’s guide asks for the maximum dose and the minimum gap whenever a medicine is “as required”; fill in your own numbers.

Phrases for food and for how long

खाली पेट on its own leaves the patient to decide what empty means. Britain’s standard pharmacy label, as one NHS trust’s guidance sets it out, defines it as “an hour before food or 2 hours after food”. If that is what you mean, say so: खाली पेट, यानी खाने से 1 घंटा पहले या 2 घंटे बाद.

Phrases for drops, inhalers, syrups and other forms

The verb tells the patient how: खाएँ for tablets, पिएँ for syrups, डालें for drops, लगाएँ for creams and ointments, लें for puffs. Get the verb wrong and a correct line can still mislead: eye and ear drops are डालें, never पिएँ.

Phrases for warnings and the next visit

Which words confuse patients?

Formal, Sanskrit-heavy Hindi reads like a government notice, and few patients speak it at home. Write the word they would say:

The last row is the point: patients already use English words such as BP, sugar, tablet, drop and inhaler, so use them too. Other words cause trouble even when they are everyday Hindi:

• शाम or रात? Evening and night are hours apart. For a bedtime dose, write रात को सोते समय.
• कल and परसों each mean two days: yesterday or tomorrow, the day before yesterday or the day after tomorrow. Write the date of the next visit.
• चम्मच (spoon) is not a measure. The US ISMP list of error-prone abbreviations asks for millilitres, because teaspoons and tablespoons get mixed up.
• ½ has been read as 1 or 2 tablets when written as “1/2”, the same list warns. Write आधी गोली.
• Shorthand inside the Hindi line. BD, TDS, HS and SOS belong to the chemist. In the patient’s line, write दिन में दो बार, दिन में तीन बार, रात को सोते समय and ज़रूरत होने पर.
• जैसा बताया है (as directed) tells the patient nothing a week later. WHO’s guide says not to write it.
• दिन में तीन बार and हर 8 घंटे पर are different instructions. Choose the one you mean.

The medicine names themselves stay in English. Clause 1.5 of the 2002 ethics regulations, as amended in 2016, asks for each generic name “legibly and preferably in capital letters”, and the Hindi line sits under it. Our guide to prescription abbreviations covers the chemist’s side of the page, and reading dose timings like 1-0-1 is written for your patients.

Where DrMate Rx fits

In DrMate Rx, our prescription pad, the Hindi line is written for you from the prescription itself, so it matches what you signed. You type the shorthand you use on paper, and each medicine prints with the patient’s instructions in Hindi. These are examples of how the pad reads a line, not treatment advice:

Change the dose or the days and the Hindi changes with them. When a later step of a taper can’t be put into Hindi word for word, the line says the rest is on the prescription (आगे की खुराक पर्चे पर लिखी है) rather than give half an instruction. Other notes you add, such as the most to take in a day or the day of a weekly dose, print under the medicine as you wrote them but are not in the Hindi line, so tell the patient those yourself. The patient’s private link shows the prescription in Hindi or English. If you would rather talk than type, the doctor’s room drafts the note and the prescription from the consultation, with the patient’s instructions in Hindi, for you to approve.