If a pharmacy receives a drug in a strength of 200 mg per tablet and needs to compound a prescription for 500 mg, how many tablets are required?

To determine the number of tablets required to fulfill a prescription for 500 mg when each tablet contains 200 mg, you start by calculating how many tablets are necessary.

First, you need to divide the total required dosage (500 mg) by the strength of each individual tablet (200 mg):

500 mg ÷ 200 mg/tablet = 2.5 tablets.

Since you cannot dispense half a tablet in this scenario, you would need to round up to the next whole number, which is 3. However, if the goal is strictly to fulfill the prescription as closely as possible with whole tablets, using 2 tablets will only yield a total of 400 mg (2 x 200 mg), which is not sufficient. Therefore, the correct approach is to use 3 tablets, amounting to 600 mg (3 x 200 mg), which surpasses the required dosage but meets the need for whole tablet dispensing.

Considering the context of pharmacy practice where exact dosages must be respected, it would be more appropriate to use the total number of tablets required and logically account for dispensing practices, thus leading to the conclusion that 3 tablets would need to be issued to fulfill a prescription of 500 mg properly. This ensures that the patient receives