title: Diagnosis and therapeutic goals. What are you actually treating?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bad prescribing frequently involves writing a prescription for a symptom or a diagnosis and not considering the other steps in the prescribing process.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To illustrate the process of therapeutic goals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Therapeutic goals are the answer to the patient's question: 'Why am I taking this medication?' Taking this step in the prescribing process allows for a greater consideration of available treatment options, greater individualisation of therapy, avoids treatment on the basis of surrogate endopoints, and may result in greater patient concordance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia. sshakib@mail.rah.sa.gov.au
authors.forename: Sepehr
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shakib
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: George
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015415:Biomarkers; D004358:Drug Therapy; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010358:Patient Participation
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers