Pharmacology Cheat Sheet
Judgement, Audit and Counselling
Clinical pharmacology skills for NEET-PG: WHO six-step prescribing, STEP P-drug criteria, ADR classification, pharmacovigilance PvPI, and NLEM 2022.
MedNext Academy | 3 min read
Judgement, Audit and Counselling
Clinical pharmacology skills for NEET-PG: WHO six-step prescribing, STEP P-drug criteria, ADR classification, pharmacovigilance PvPI, and NLEM 2022.
Clinical pharmacology skills covering rational prescribing, adverse drug reaction classification, pharmacovigilance, essential medicines, and medication counselling.
High-yield lines
- The WHO six-step prescribing process starts with defining the patient's problem and specifying the therapeutic objective before choosing a drug.
- P-drug selection uses the STEP criteria: safety, tolerability, efficacy, and price plus availability.
- The Rawlins-Thompson type A adverse reaction is dose-dependent and predictable, accounting for about 80% of reactions, such as warfarin bleeding.
- Type B reactions are bizarre, dose-independent, and unpredictable, such as anaphylaxis.
- The Pharmacovigilance Programme of India was launched by CDSCO in 2010, with the national coordination centre at the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, Ghaziabad.
- The highest level of evidence for therapy is a systematic review or meta-analysis of well-conducted randomised controlled trials.
- The p-value is the probability of the observed result if the null hypothesis of no difference were true.
- The 2022 Indian NLEM contains 384 medicines and serves as the national benchmark for procurement and price control.
- The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines was first published in 1977 and is updated every 2 years.
- Cost-minimisation analysis compares only costs among therapeutically equivalent options such as two bioequivalent generics.
- Medication counselling should cover what the drug is, how to take it, how long, what to expect, and what to avoid.
- The teach-back method verifies understanding by asking the patient to explain how they will take the medicine.
- NMC ethics require prescribing generics by the generic name and forbid gifts from pharmaceutical companies that could influence prescribing.
- WHO core prescribing indicators measure items such as the average number of drugs per encounter and the percentage prescribed by generic name.
Mapped competency codes
- PH3.1
- PH3.2
- PH3.3
- PH3.4
- PH3.5
- PH3.6
- PH3.7
- PH3.8
Continue into the full chapter
This summary maps to PH17-clinical-pharmacology-skills.
Frequently Asked Questions
What criteria guide P-drug selection?
STEP: safety, tolerability, efficacy, and price (plus availability).
How are type A and type B adverse drug reactions distinguished?
Type A is dose-dependent, predictable, and common (about 80%); type B is bizarre, dose-independent, and unpredictable like anaphylaxis.
Where is India's pharmacovigilance coordinated?
The Pharmacovigilance Programme of India, launched by CDSCO in 2010, is coordinated by the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission in Ghaziabad.
What is the teach-back method?
A counselling technique where the patient explains in their own words how they will take the medicine, verifying understanding better than a yes-or-no question.
Continue reading
Cheat SheetsAll Pharmacology cheat sheets
Browse the complete authored set for this subject.
Open the complete revision pathway
Explore clinician-written learning resources, structured revision and practice across the MedNext platform.
Open in the MedNext appSee plans

