Using Kitchen Spoon Increases Drug Dosing Problems

Posted on January 4, 2010 in Health & Medicine, Parenting

Using a kitchen spoon or other kitchen utensil to measure doses of liquid cough syrup, cold medicine, and other liquid remedies increases the chance of delivering the wrong dose, according to a new study.

Most cold remedies or other liquid medications come with their own plastic cup marked with the proper measurements to make it easier to deliver the proper dose. However, many people still reach into the kitchen drawer for a spoon to dispense liquid medications, which can lead to dangerous overdoses or underdoses of drugs.

Cornell University researchers found participants in a new study were more than eight percent more likely to underdose when using medium-sized spoons and more than 11 percent more likely to underdose when using larger spoons.

Still, most participants had above-average confidence that they had poured the proper dose in the spoons, the study found.

Because overdoses of medication can cause severe complications and underdoses can allow sickness to linger longer, the Food and Drug Administration advises against using spoons or other kitchen utensils to dose liquid medicines. Patients who are sick and taking cold medicine or other drugs every four to eight hours for several days are most at risk of dangerous overdoses.

For the study, 195 university students who were recent patients of the university health clinic during cold and flu season were asked to pour a one-teaspoon (5 mL) dose of cold medicine into various sizes of kitchen spoons.

The students were first given a full bottle of cold medicine and made to pour a 5 mL dose into a 5 mL teaspoon. They were then asked to pour the same amount of dose into spoons of varying sizes and asked how confident they felt in whether they had poured the proper dose.