Patient and Indication Assessment
Establish the prescribing purpose and identify patient factors that change the benefit, risk, formulation, route or dose.
How to prepare for the PSA
Combine patient-centred prescribing judgement with fast BNF navigation, reliable calculations, complete prescriptions and explicit monitoring and communication.
Core concepts
Concept 1
A safe prescription begins with a clear indication and an accurate account of current and recent medicines, allergies and previous adverse reactions.
Exam cue: State the indication and the intended benefit before choosing a medicine.
Concept 2
Age, body size, pregnancy, frailty, kidney or liver impairment, comorbidity and the practical route of administration can materially change a prescription.
Exam cue: Check allergies, existing medicines, organ function and patient-specific contraindications.
Concept 3
The clinical scenario must be interpreted before consulting a medicines reference; a formulary does not decide whether treatment is appropriate for this patient.
Exam cue: Separate information that changes the prescription from background detail.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Searching for a dose before confirming the indication and patient.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Ignoring non-prescription medicines, recent treatment or a documented adverse reaction.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Treating a standard adult dose as automatically suitable for every patient.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Memory anchors
Indication First
Define the problem and intended treatment benefit before selecting a medicine.
Medication History
Include prescribed, over-the-counter, complementary and recently stopped medicines.
Allergy Check
Distinguish a documented allergy from an intolerance while treating both as relevant history.
Patient Factors
Age, size, pregnancy, frailty and organ function can change medicine choice or dose.
Clinical Context
Use the BNF within the patient scenario rather than as a substitute for clinical judgement.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
A 72-year-old with vomiting has BP 86/54 mmHg, cool peripheries and no pulmonary oedema. What treatment need should be addressed first?
A patient with type 1 diabetes is vomiting, glucose 24 mmol/L, ketones 6 mmol/L and venous pH 7.18. Which need is most urgent?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
What is Pass Harbor?
Completely free exam prep for 247 UK exams.
- Practice questions
- Flashcards
- Study guides
- Mock exams
- No registration
- No paywall
- Start instantly
“No more expensive exam prep. Quality study tools should be accessible to everyone.”