When giving medicine to your children, leave the utensil drawer shut. A new study reports that people who use spoons to administer liquid medications are more prone to making measurement mistakes that can lead to dangerous health consequences.
The study surveyed 287 parents after they gave their children medicine. Over 40% of the participants in the study measured the medicine incorrectly, and one in six parents used kitchen utensils.
Don't use teaspoons and tablespoons, says Dr. Ian M. Paul, professor at Penn State University College of Medicine and one of the authors of the study conducted at New York University School of Medicine.
"A kitchen spoon is less precise," he said. "There are no markings on it, and they vary widely in size. You could way overdose."
A quarter of the participants in the study said they received no measuring device with the medicine, so they resorted to their kitchen drawers. Many use tablespoons instead of teaspoons, unwittingly giving their children three times the medical dosage. On the flip side, underdosing also presents dangers, especially with antibiotic medicines used to mitigate infections. If the medicines are ineffective because of underdosing, physicians may prescribe stronger medications.
"Terms like 'teaspoon' and 'tablespoon' inadvertently endorse the use of kitchen spoons, which can vary in size and shape," said Dr. H. Shonna Yin, lead investigator of the study.
To avoid these problems many professional groups are recommending the use of the milliliter as a uniform unit for liquid medication. A study reported that dosing medicines in milliliters led to fewer errors in measurements than dosing with spoons. The unit of measurement can be dosed with syringes or cups. The NYU School of Medicine study showed that only 1% of the parent participants used milliliters to measure our medicine.
Parents aren't the sole targets of blame. Often, they are given inconsistent information that can undoubtedly make things ambiguous.
"Parents may encounter different units of measurement as they're being counseled by their doctor or pharmacist, and those units may be different from what they see on the prescription or bottle label. So there's no wonder that they can be confused," said Dr. Yin.
Fortunately efforts are in place to push the uniform unit of measurement through. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that physicians prescribe using milliliters, that pharmacies label containers in milliliters and that devices for dosing such measurements are included with medicines.
According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, 10,000 people contact poison centers for overdosing concerns or measurement confusion yearly.
