What does "s/t" mean?

Nursing Students Student Assist

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I'm trying to do my careplan for class. They gave us a scenario and template but I don't know what s/t stands for.

Frequently used as an abbreviation for secondary to.

You might also see it written as 2° or 2/2.

We were told to use s/t instead of r/t if the defining characteristic you cite in your NDX statement is an MDX rather than a sign or symptom.

thanks guys!

hmm is this new? never saw it in 25+ years.

when we use S/T it always means skin tear. never seen it used as meaning 'secondary to'.

morte said:
hmm is this new? never saw it in 25+ years.

Could be. The same NI told us not use the word "poor" to describe skin turgor (she wants us to say loose or tented instead), but I see it described that way in just about all our books and materials...

safety and tolerabiity

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not sure other countries, but In australia, we used S/T for short term. 

Example, S/T ABx (short term antibiotics)

Specializes in ICU.

I've always used it secondary to.  Pt is admitted to the ICU for PNA (pneumonia) s/t (secondary to) COVID infection. It means that one thing came after and as a result of the first thing.  So the PNA is a result of COVID, hence PNA is s/t COVID. 

Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.

This may be individual facility preference. There should be a list of approved abbreviations for charting either handwritten or manually entered in every one. Find it and you’ll have your answer of what to use.

It could even be regional. While I went to college on the east coast, I worked on the west coast for several years after graduation and learned that an IMI (inferior myocardial infarction) was what we called DMI (diaphragmatic MI). And I used to joke that whether it was “ann-JYE-nuh” or “ANN-juh-nuh” depended on whether the cardiologist went to Stanford or Harvard. 

Me, I’ve most often seen “d/t” for “due to,” “r/t” for “related to” (these both mean “caused by” and are the same thing in any diagnostic context), and “s/t” for “short-term” most often. 


I’ve never heard of a restriction on terminology based on whether a given causative factor was a medical diagnosis or a nursing observation, and this “rule” certainly doesn’t appear in the NANDA-I of any vintage. 

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