The nurse has a prescription for prednisone to treat contact dermatitis. The nurse would question this prescription for a patient with which condition?

• A. Asthma
• B. Multiple sclerosis
• C. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)
• D. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Answer: (C)

Systemic corticosteroids like prednisone suppress the immune system. In contact dermatitis, treatment aims to reduce inflammation, and while steroids may be used, systemic prednisone adds broad immunosuppression. In a patient with AIDS, the immune system is already severely compromised, so giving prednisone would substantially raise the risk of opportunistic infections and could worsen the patient's condition. That’s why this prescription would be questioned for someone with AIDS.

The other conditions—asthma, multiple sclerosis, and COPD—are inflammatory or autoimmune conditions where steroids are commonly used as part of management, and they don’t carry the same level of baseline immunodeficiency as AIDS, so they don’t present the same contraindication here.