Parents using dosing cups for administering their children’s medication have an increased chance of making a large dosing error in comparison with using the oral syringe, an experimental study has found.
Published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the research enrolled 302 parents and observed dosing accuracy through a set of standardised instruments, including two dosing cups - one with printed calibration markings, the other with etched markings - dropper, dosing spoon, and two oral syringes - one with and the other without a bottle adapter.
The percentages of parents dosing accurately were 30.5 per cent using the cup with printed markings and 50.2 per cent using the cup with etched markings, while more than 85 per cent dosed accurately with the remaining instruments.
Errors of more than 40 per cent deviation were made by 25.8 per cent of parents using the cup with printed markings and 23.3 per cent of parents using the cup with etched markings, while no overdosing errors were recorded for the oral syringes used.
Study author Dr H. Shonna Yin from the department of pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine, said errors involving cups are thought to arise from assumptions that the full cup is the dose, and confusion about teaspoon and tablespoon instructions, where similarity in markings of "tsp" and "tbsp" exist.
"A disproportionate burden of outpatient medication errors is shouldered by families with low health literacy. Our findings demonstrate that health literacy is particularly important for dosing accuracy with cups. This suggests that provision of instruments designed to place fewer literacy demands on families is one strategy to decrease dosing errors," she commented.