. 2023 May 2;13(5):e067907. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-067907

Table 1.

Definition of main terms (and variables) used in the study

Terminology	Definition
NMP	NMP is a term widely used in the UK, and it represents the prescribing authorities given to certain non-medical healthcare professionals (eg, nurses, dietitians, physiotherapists) after completing a prescribing training course.^{9 35}
IP	Those using IP are responsible for assessing patients’ health conditions and making decisions about patients’ treatment and clinical management, including prescribing, within their scope of practice.^{9 35}
SP	Using SP, the initial assessment and diagnosis of a patient’s condition are carried out by an independent prescriber (ie, a GP or dentist), and the clinical condition is managed using a patient-specific clinical management plan agreed by the independent prescriber, supplementary prescriber and patient.^{9 35}
PGD	PGD is a legal-written framework that allows registered healthcare professionals to supply and/or prescribe specified medicines to a predefined group of patients without them having to see a medical prescriber (eg, a GP).^{7 23}
Medicine management or prescribing activities	A system of processes that determines how medicines are used by patients and health providers. For the purposes of this study, medicine management and prescribing activities refer to prescribing and/or the process of giving advice about medicines and the supply of medicines, as described in the research questions subsection.^{17 20}
Cost and resource use	This refers to the direct and/or indirect medical and/or non-medical resources consumed by the study population and/or the costs associated with setting up and implementing the intervention(s) under study.⁴⁴
Consequence	This refers to the health, non-health, clinical and patient outcomes representing the effects of the intervention(s) under study.⁴⁴
Perspective	This refers to (one or more groups of) stakeholders’ viewpoints from which economic evaluation or cost analysis is conducted.⁴⁴ Examples include the patient perspective, societal perspective or healthcare provider perspective.
Comparator	This refers to the alternative courses of action (eg, usual care) against which the intervention under study (eg, NMP, the subject of this study) is evaluated.⁴⁴

GP, general practitioner; IP, independent prescribing; NMP, non-medical prescribing; PGD, patient group direction; SP, supplementary prescribing.