NKDA

NKDA stands for No Known Drug Allergies. It is an acronym used in medical documentation to indicate that a patient has not reported, and clinicians have not documented, any allergy to medications. This status is commonly recorded during patient intake, before procedures, and within electronic medical records to guide prescribing and anesthesia plans. While NKDA is a helpful shorthand, it does not guarantee that a patient will tolerate all drugs, as it reflects information available at the time of documentation.

NKDA is specific to drug allergies. It is not a statement about allergies to non-drug substances; patients may have environmental or food allergies that are recorded separately. It also does not guarantee safety, since true drug allergies can develop later or may be unrecognized, and some adverse reactions are not allergic in nature. Therefore, NKDA should be reviewed and updated whenever new information arises, such as a reported drug reaction or new findings about drug tolerance.

In clinical practice, if a patient reports a past reaction to a medication, clinicians should document the drug, the nature of the reaction, and its severity, and update the NKDA field accordingly. In emergency or perioperative settings, NKDA aids rapid decision making but does not replace thorough history-taking and, when possible, allergy evaluation. Documentation standards view NKDA as a dynamic element of the patient record that should be reconciled and revisited during medication reviews.