Appropriateness of oral medication delivery devices available in community pharmacies

To identify the proportion of prescribed liquid medications that can be properly administered with devices available at local community pharmacies.

Prescriptions written over a 2-month time frame in a pediatric clinic were analyzed and compared with measuring devices available at community pharmacies within a 5-mile radius. Devices from the pharmacies were compared with the prescriptions to determine if they were acceptable and/or optimal to measure the dose as prescribed. Data collected for each prescription included items such as presence of markings on the device at the prescribed dose, if the units of measurement matched the device, if acceptable to measure the prescribed volume with the available device, optimal syringe volume, and if the pharmacy had an optimal device for the prescribed volume.

Among the 11 different devices collected from the pharmacies, 5 different types were found. Over the 2 months of prescription data analyzed, 557 prescriptions were written, with 158 (28%) being liquids requiring a medication delivery device for administration. When comparing the 5 unique devices to 158 prescriptions independently, it was found that 9%, 30%, 53%, and 92%, respectively, for the 1-mL, 3-mL, 5-mL, and 10-mL devices were acceptable to measure the volume prescribed. The 5-mL syringe was optimal in only 21% of prescriptions analyzed, and the 10-mL syringe and spoon were found to be the most optimal device for the prescriptions analyzed. Of the 5 pharmacies reviewed, all prescriptions could be optimally measured with the use of devices that they had available 49% of the time (range 22% to 78%).

Oral medication delivery devices are imperative for safe and effective oral liquid medication use. Understanding optimal and acceptable devices would allow pharmacists to tailor patient-specific education and would allow direction when stocking oral delivery devices in the community pharmacy.