Effect of temperature and humidity on the disintegration time of packaged paracetamol tablet formulations

A study of the effect of various temperature and humidity conditions on the disintegration time of different brands of packaged paracetamol tablet formulations has been made over a period of six months. Under all the storage conditions paracetamol tablets show an increase in disintegration time ranging from 9.1 to 65.5% (200 mg tablets) and 1.2 to 150.0% (500 mg tablets) on increasing the temperature from 25 to 45 degrees C (75% RH). The increase in disintegration time on increasing the temperature from 25 to 45 degrees C (100% RH) ranges from 14.3 to 157.7% (200 mg tablets) and 15.3 to 92.3% (500 mg tablets). The overall increase in disintegration time from 25-45 degrees C at 75% and 100% RH is 36.4 to 564% (200 mg tablets) and 10.0 to 140.5% (500 mg tablets) and 101.3 to 122.9% (200 mg tablets) and 2.6 to 46.8% (500 mg tablets) respectively. These results indicate that PVC/PVDC/Al foil packaging cause relatively less change in disintegration time of the tablets compared to that of the polycoated paper and viscose film.