Question

You are assigned to care for a patient who was recently admitted to your unit with pneumonia and is ordered antibiotics. The physician starts with a cephalosporin (ceftriaxone) to attack the bacteria. When completing your initial assessment and patient history what would be concerning to you as the RN? What side effects and adverse reactions will you be monitoring for while the patient is taking a cephalosporin? What are the contraindications and interactions of cephalosporins? What are the nursing interventions for this patient? Explain your answer. Your patient is being discharged home on this medication. What is included in the patient teaching? Patients taking antibiotics are also at risk for superinfection. Describe what this is, how it is manifested, and preventative measures.

Answer 1

Cephalosporin is a class of antibiotics known as beta-lactam antibiotics, these are the bactericidal(kill bacteria) drug. The nurse should ask the patient any allergy-related to antibiotics and should do a skin allergy test before administering the antibiotics.

The nurse should monitor any allergies of cephalosporins by redness of skin or skin rashes, other adverse reactions are

• nausea
• vomiting
• diarrhea
• dyselectrolytemia
• yeast infection
• itching

Cephalosporins are contraindicated if you are allergic to these type of antibiotics.

Cephalosporins interact with

• H2 blockers (Ranitidine, famotidine)
• PPE's (Rabeprazole, esomeprazole)
• live typhoid vaccine

when a patient discharged with antibiotics(Cephalosporin) nurse give a clear idea about the side effects of Cephalosporins and tell the patient that he/she should complete the dose of antibiotics otherwise he may develop antibiotic resistance.

While taking Cephalosporin, there is a chance for superinfection. Superinfection means another infection by a new bacteria which is unrelated to primary infection due to disturbances of normal microbiome(genome of microorganisms) in the body by broadspectrum antibiotics.

Tell the patient to maintain personal hygiene to reduce the risk for infection, and the patient should report immediatly if there is any new sign and symptoms.