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In The News Internal Medicine Kitchen Spoons Don't Work for Meds
In The News Internal Medicine Kitchen Spoons Don't Work for Meds
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In The News Internal Medicine Kitchen Spoons Don't Work for Meds
| Kitchen Spoons Don't Work for Meds |
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| Posted by Dr. Johanne Perez M.D |
| Friday, 12 February 2010 16:25 |
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The amount of medicine poured varies with the size of the spoon.
Students were asked to pour a 5-mL (teaspoon) dose of cold medicine into a teaspoon, a medium-sized tablespoon, and a larger spoon. The amount of medicine poured varied with the size of the spoon: Participants underdosed by 8.4% (amount poured, 4.58 mL) with the medium-sized tablespoon and overdosed by 11.6% (amount poured, 5.58 mL) with the larger spoon. When asked to judge their dosing accuracy, participants had above average confidence that they had poured the correct dose into the medium and larger spoons. Comment: Although the dosing errors demonstrated in this study might seem inconsequential for a cold medication, the cumulative effect of 20% variation in the delivery of medications could have considerable clinical impact for drugs with tighter risk-benefit profiles. Clearly, the size of the spoon is important when patients pour their medications. We should encourage parents to use accurate measures (e.g., measuring cap, dropper, or syringe) rather than convenient utensils for liquid-medication dosing. — F. Bruder Stapleton, MD Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
January 27, 2010 |
Many patients and parents use kitchen spoons to dose liquid medications, but the accuracy of spoon dosing is questionable. These authors conducted a simple study in 195 university students to examine the effect of spoon size on dosing of liquid medication.
