Unit of measurement used and parent medication dosing errors

Area of Science:

• Pediatric medicine
• Patient safety
• Health literacy

Background:

• Liquid medication dosing instructions often use volume units like teaspoons or tablespoons.
• Kitchen spoons may not be standardized, leading to inaccurate measurements.
• This can contribute to medication errors in pediatric care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between measurement units used (milliliters vs. teaspoons/tablespoons) and parent medication errors.
• To determine if the use of nonstandard instruments mediates this relationship.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional analysis of 287 parents of children prescribed liquid medication.
• Medication errors defined by knowledge of dose and observed dose measurement (>20% deviation).
• Logistic regression adjusted for various parent and child factors, including health literacy.

Main Results:

• High rates of medication errors observed: 39.4% in dose measurement, 41.1% in prescribed dose knowledge.
• Parents using teaspoons or tablespoons had double the odds of dose errors compared to milliliter users.
• Nonstandard instrument use partially explained errors associated with teaspoon/tablespoon measurements, especially in low health literacy groups.

Conclusions:

• Findings support adopting a milliliter-only standard for liquid medication instructions.
• Standardization to milliliters is a key strategy to reduce pediatric medication errors.
• Addressing health literacy and language barriers is crucial for improving medication safety.