Which term refers to grouping by the therapeutic use of medications?

• A. Pharmacological class
• B. Therapeutic classification
• C. Medication profile
• D. Indications

Answer: (B)

Grouping medications by what they treat—their therapeutic use—is called therapeutic classification. This approach sorts drugs into categories like analgesics, antihypertensives, or anticoagulants based on the condition they are used to manage, not on how the drug works. For example, morphine and ibuprofen are both used to relieve pain, so they fall under the analgesics category even though their mechanisms of action differ.

Pharmacologic class, by contrast, groups drugs by mechanism of action (such as beta-blockers or ACE inhibitors), which can place drugs with different therapeutic uses into separate classes. Indications refer to the specific conditions a drug is approved to treat for a given patient or context, but they’re not the system-wide way we organize drugs. A medication profile is more about the drug’s individual details rather than a grouping method.

So the best term for grouping by therapeutic use is therapeutic classification.