Stop spoon dosing: milliliter instructions reduce inclination to spoon dosing
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Disposable Dosators for Pulmonary Insufflation of Therapeutic Agents to Small Animals
Published on: March 30, 2017
Koert van Ittersum1, Brian Wansink2
1Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Nettelbosje 2, 9747 AE, Groningen, The Netherlands. k.van.ittersum@rug.nl.
Background:
Does the use of teaspoon units in dose recommendations on Drug Facts panels of liquid medicine lead to dosing errors and could any such errors be reduced if millimeter units were used instead?
Findings:
Participants given dosing instructions in teaspoon units were twice as likely to choose a kitchen teaspoon as those given instructions in milliliter units (31.3 vs. 15.4%).
Conclusion:
Our results suggest that spoon usage--and the inherent risk of dosage errors--could be reduced by more than 50% simply by changing the units of measurement given in dosing instructions.
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