A study recently published in Pediatrics found that parents made fewer liquid medication dosing errors when using milliliter units than when they used teaspoon and tablespoon measurements.
Although parents may feel more comfortable with teaspoons and tablespoons, the researchers observed that parents mix up the terms and their abbreviations (tsp. and tbsp.). Also, according to the study, “teaspoon and tablespoon units may inadvertently endorse the use of kitchen spoons, which vary widely in size and shape, making it difficult for parents to measure their intended dose.” In fact, the researchers found that parents were (1) 30 times more likely to use a kitchen spoon to measure doses in teaspoons or tablespoons than they were to measure ones in milliliters and (2) twice as likely to make mistakes measuring doses in teaspoon or tablespoon units than they were measuring milliliter dosages.
Additionally, the researchers found that prescriptions that were written in milliliter units were often converted to teaspoon or tablespoon units by the dispensing pharmacy. Specifically, out of over 100 prescriptions written in milliliters only, 50% of the associated prescription labels used teaspoons only and 8.3% used milliliters and teaspoons. The researchers suggested that this discrepancy may be due to perceptions that parents do not understand how to measure milliliter dosages.
