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Feasibility of developing children's Pill School within a UK hospital

Asia N Rashed1,2, David Terry3, Andy Fox4

  • 1Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King's College London, London, London, UK asia.rashed@kcl.ac.uk.

Archives of Disease in Childhood
|November 24, 2020
PubMed

Insights

A UK hospital trial found that children's Pill School (PS) training is feasible and acceptable. Most children successfully learned to swallow pills and were switched from liquid medicines.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric medicine
  • Pharmaceutical sciences
  • Healthcare delivery

Background:

  • Many children require liquid medications, which can be challenging to administer and may have palatability issues.
  • Switching from liquid formulations to solid pills can improve medication adherence and simplify administration for pediatric patients.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a children's Pill School (PS) intervention in a UK hospital setting.
  • To determine the proportion of pediatric patients who can successfully transition from liquid medicines to pills.
  • To gather insights into children's and parents' experiences with the PS training.

Main Methods:

  • A cohort of 30 inpatient children (aged 3-18 years) on liquid medications suitable for pill formulation were enrolled.
  • Training sessions utilized progressively larger hard sweets to teach pill-swallowing techniques.
  • Data collected included training success rates, medication switch success, and participant feedback.

Main Results:

  • 87% of children mastered pill swallowing after a single training session (average 14.5 minutes).
  • 92% of participating children were discharged from the hospital taking pills.
  • Of 75 liquid medications assessed as switchable, 89% were successfully converted to pill form.

Conclusions:

  • The children's Pill School intervention is a feasible and acceptable method for teaching pediatric patients to swallow pills.
  • Successful pill swallowing and medication switching were achieved even in children as young as 3 years old.
  • This intervention offers a viable strategy to improve medication management in pediatric inpatients.
Abstract

Keywords:
health services researchpharmacologytherapeutics

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