Every eight minutes a child in the U.S. is given an incorrect dose of medicine by a parent or caregiver, according to a new study. Published in the Oct. 20 online issue of Pediatrics, the study found children under 6 were most likely to experience an out-of-hospital medication-dosing error.
Using data from the National Poison Database System, researchers found that from 2002 to 2012, 63,000 kids ages 6 years and under experienced medication errors, usually in the children’s home, school or caregiver’s residence. The most commonly involved medications were fever-reducers and painkillers.
“This is more common than people may realize,” senior author Huiyun Xiang, MD, MPH, PhD, director of the Center for Pediatric Trauma Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, principal investigator at the hospital’s Center for Injury Research and Policy, said in a news release. He added that these numbers underestimate the problem, because they are just the cases reported to poison centers.
The researchers found that painkillers and fever-reducers such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen were most commonly involved in medication errors, accounting for 25 percent of all inaccurate doses. Antihistamines, they reported, were responsible for 15 percent of the cases. Nearly 82 percent of the errors involved liquid medicines.
According to the study, common medication errors were a result of giving a child the same medicine twice, administering the wrong medicine, and misreading dosing instructions on the packaging. Younger children were more likely to experience an error than older children, with 25 percent of mistakes occurring in children under the age of 1.
“Very young children may not be able to communicate well with parents and caregivers, and so are unable to tell those adults that they have already taken the medication,” Xiang told Live Science. This may be the reason why this group is more vulnerable to double-dosing errors.
Xiang and his team noted that cold and cough medicine dosing errors have decreased since the 2007 FDA recommendation against using these medications in children under 6 years of age. In 2008, manufacturers removed over-the-counter cold and cough medicines for children under 2, and re-labeled these products to warn against their use in children under 4.
“There are public health strategies being used to decrease the frequency and severity of medication errors among young children,” co-author Henry Spiller, D.ABAT, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center, said in the news release. “Product packaging needs to be redesigned in a way that provides accurate dosing devices and instructions, and better labeling to increase visibility to parents.”
Credit : Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty (Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon – 32 Years of Experience)
