OTC Drug Overdosing Harmful To Children
The misuse of over the counter (OTC) drugs by parents is putting children in danger, according to a new study presented by a team of Australian researchers during the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s (FIP) annual conference on Monday.
In the study, Dr. Rebekah Moles from the University of Sydney, New South Wales and her colleagues studied 97 adults, including 53 mothers, 7 fathers, and 37 day care workers, during a five-month period that ended in February. Moles and her team ran the parents and caregivers through a series of different scenarios, all of which involved four and five year old children experiencing different symptoms.
They then asked the adults which types of common household medication they would use to treat each child, if any, and allowed the caregiver to select a dosing device and measure out the medicine. In all, the experts discovered that only 64-percent of adults were able to correctly measure out the dosage that they intended to give, and 44-percent would have given an incorrect dosage.
Furthermore, Moles and her colleagues reported that 15-percent of the parents and day care professionals would have given medicine without checking a child’s temperature, and 55-percent would have given medicine when no fever was present.
"We were surprised and concerned to find that some people thought that medicines must be safe because you can buy them without prescription," Moles said in an FIP press release. "For example, one parent said to us that if [a brand of medicine] is available over the counter, administering a double dose couldn’t do any harm and asked: What could be the worst that could happen?"
According to the press release, the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre’s 2008 Annual Report claims that 48-percent of the 119,000 calls they received that year involved cases of accidental overdose in young kids. Of those, 85-percent were for children under five, 80-percent involved kids three or under, and 15-percent required hospitalization.
"Given these figures and our findings, there is an urgent need to review the use of children’s OTC medicines by parents," said Moles, adding that her team now planned to review the advice given to parents by pharmacies to determine whether or not caregivers are receiving incorrect coaching on the use of the over-the-counter medication they give to the kids in their care.
"Medicines that are available to buy are safe if used correctly but there are some risks if they are not," Margaret Peycke of the UK’s National Pharmacy Association (NPA), who was not involved in the research, told BBC News reporters on Sunday. "The medicine should be administered carefully using the spoon or measuring device supplied, to ensure the child does not receive more or less than the recommended dose."
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