Soa????????????????

we use DIB...difficulty in breathing.

That's a between abreviation than SOB. I know that there was an old joke in a Reader's Digest a long time ago about a pt who looked at his chart and demanded to know why the doctor thought that he was SOB... the punchline was "Shortness of Breath." You probably get the idea of the job. Sorry, it's late, umm, I mean early and this joke happened a LONG time ago. :)

We use resp distress, not SOB either.

Great idea; 12 letters instead of 3. But seriously folks, I have been given to understand that shortness of breath is a symptom (i.e., subjective) and respiratory distress is a sign (i.e., objective). Imagine yourself at triage. Somebody tells you that they have been unable to breath for some period of time. If you just cannot bring yourself to write "c/o SOB", then I suggest quoting the patient..........like we are supposed to do. That is their chief complaint; the reason that they came to the ER. When the chief complaint is SOB, our focused assessment is all about determining if the patient is in respiratory distress or not. Here is a recent example from my practice of emergency nursing: c/o "completely unable to breath" x 1 - 2 weeks. Nose stopped up. Recent HX "sinusitis" Dx by PMD => on Abx. AOx4, calm, cooperative, NAD. Resp. even & unlabored. Lungs CTAB w/ good A/E.

By the way, who is shouting "SOB" across their ED?

Ok this may be a stupid question, but I started in a ER recently and we are not allowed to use the term SOB (shortness of breath), we have to use SOA (shortness of air) I have been in the health care feild for a number of years, and this was a first for me. Is this the norm now, did people find SOB offensive or something??

Never heard of this. We use SOB or dyspnea.

I'll have to check what our ER is using.

"Respiratory Distress" doesn't apply to all people who are short of breath, in my opinion. Respiratory distress sounds a bit extreme, unless you clarify with "mildly, moderate, etc."

I still use the old nursing school terms like dyspnea and tachypnea, along with SOB. :)