Potassium Salts Drug Study

In making a Drug Study, the following elements must be present: Generic Name and the Brand name (not all brands, just the brand used by the patient), Action, Indication, Pregnancy Category, Drug Classification, and Contraindication, Adverse Effect, Drug interaction and Nursing Consideration/Intervention…. Most clinical instructors preferred this to be in a long bond paper in printed or handwritten with paper in landscape.

Potassium salts

Brand Name: potassium acetate, potassium chloride

Pregnancy Category C

Drug class: Electrolyte

Therapeutic actions

Principal intracellular cation of most body tissues, participates in a number of physiologic processes--maintaining intracellular tonicity, transmission of nerve impulses, contraction of cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle, maintenance of normal renal function; also plays a role in carbohydrate metabolism and various enzymatic reactions.

Indications

· Prevention and correction of potassium deficiency; when associated with alkalosis, use potassium chloride; when associated with acidosis, use potassium acetate, bicarbonate, citrate, or gluconate

· Treatment of cardiac arrhythmias due to cardiac glycosides (IV)

Contraindications

· Contraindicated with allergy to tartrazine, aspirin (tartrazine is found in some preparations marketed as Kaon-Cl, Klor-Con); severe renal impairment with oliguria, anuria, azotemia; untreated Addison's disease; hyperkalemia; adynamia episodica hereditaria; acute dehydration; heat cramps; GI disorders that delay passage in the GI tract.

Adverse effects

Rash, Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, GI obstruction, GI bleeding, GI ulceration or perforation

Hyperkalemia--increased serum K+, ECG changes (peaking of T waves, loss of P waves, depression of ST segment, prolongation of QTc interval)

Tissue sloughing, local necrosis, local phlebitis, and venospasm with injection

Drug Interactions:

· Increased risk of hyperkalemia with potassium-sparing diuretics, salt substitutes using potassium

Nursing considerations

· Arrange for serial serum potassium levels before and during therapy.

· Administer liquid form to any patient with delayed GI emptying.

· Administer oral drug after meals or with food and a full glass of water to decrease GI upset.

· Caution patient not to chew or crush tablets; have patient swallow tablet whole.

· Mix or dissolve oral liquids, soluble powders, and effervescent tablets completely in 3–8 oz of cold water, juice, or other suitable beverage, and have patient drink it slowly.

· Arrange for further dilution or dose reduction if GI effects are severe.

· Agitate prepared IV solution to prevent "layering" of potassium; do not add potassium to an IV bottle in the hanging position.

· Monitor IV injection sites regularly for necrosis, tissue sloughing, phlebitis.

· Monitor cardiac rhythm carefully during IV administration.

· Caution patient that expended wax matrix capsules will be found in the stool.

· Caution patient not to use salt substitutes.