Do you still perform skin testing prior to giving IV antibiotic?

[plethoraldork]

I was wondering if it is still a practice to do skin test prior to administration of antibiotics in the hospital that you're working or if it's still effective?

[yelnikmcwawa]

Nope, never done it.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

What type of skin testing are you talking about?

[Hay Nars, RN]

Sorry, I' have never heard of this before.

[plethoraldork]

is perform to check if your patient is allergic to that certain antibiotic. a drop of antibiotic is placed under the patient's skin (ID injection)

[Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN]

I have never heard of this practice.

[Hay Nars, RN]

Maybe they stopped this because antibiotics are not supposed to go into the subcutaneous tissue. They are ordered IV and even then they can be very harsh on veins. :-/ See an infiltrated IV from antibiotics? Not fun.

Sounds like a deliberate extravasation.

[RNFiona]

Huh? I have been an ER nurse 10 years and have never even heard of that..so I would say ummm..no?

[Creamsoda, ASN, RN]

I wonder if that was a "old school" thing. Never heard of it, I can get the rationalle, but ive never heard of it till now.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

I was ordered to perform a scratch test one time, probably about a year ago, prior to given an antibiotic. Don't remember if it was the physician or pharmacy that ordered it, but it was the only time I've ever done it.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I was wondering if it is still a practice to do skin test prior to administration of antibiotics in the hospital that you're working or if it's still effective?

Based on the responses so far, I would conjecture that skin-testing prior to ABT administration is no longer a common practice. Personally, I've never heard of it being done until I started reading this thread.

[Creamsoda, ASN, RN]

Maybe they might do it, or like another poster mentioned, a scratch test if they want to give an ABX that is in a similar family to what the patient could be allergic to. Sometimes they may not be allergic to all in that family but they may need it for whatever reason as they may not be sensitive to the others.