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From: "Robert Dickerson" <DICKERR2@ihs.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:4558] RE: dosing cups for health literacy program
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Hi Jill,
If you have not already done so, I would suggest you check with your
hospital pharmacy or a community pharmacy. Whenever we have
prescriptions filled for our children our community pharmacy offers us
an option of a dosing cup, dosing spoon or dosing syringe. All are
calibrated in teaspoons and milliliters in increments from 1/2 tsp to 2
or 2 1/2 tsp.
The drawback to cups, I have noticed, is the calibration markings are
either indented or raised lines and numbers on the cup and not colored.
This makes them very difficult to read because there is no color
contrast between the semitransparent cup and the markings. I have to
double and triple check the dose I have poured into the cup. I have
often found I initially poured in the incorrect dose when I recheck.
With the many distractions in the typical home environment, kids
fighting and tugging at me, the dog barking, etc. (or maybe it's just
our home environment) measuring medication into a dosing cup is not as
easy as you would think. Cups with difficult to read markings make the
possibility of dosing errors higher.
The dosing spoons and dosing syringes our community pharmacy distributes
have markings that are much easier to read. The calibrations are not
only indented or raised markings but they are also black. Our children
ages 7, 6 and 3 years all prefer to use the syringes over the cups. I
think this is because the syringe is more interactive because of the
plunger than a cup from which you simply drink. (I don't know for sure
because they won't tell me.) There is also less likelihood of spilling
or loosing the dose from a dosing syringe than from the cup. Which has
happened to us with cups when we have 2 kids on liquid medication at the
same time and they are pushing each other to see who gets theirs first.
(The liquid medications today taste much better than what I had to take
as a child.)
Just a few thoughts, don't know if any of this is helpful.
Thanks,
Bob Dickerson, MSHSA, RRT
Clinical Resource Coordinator, Clinical Quality
Iowa Health - Des Moines
Des Moines, Iowa
Phone: (515) 263-5792
Fax: (515) 263-5415
E-mail: DICKERR2@ihs.org <BLOCKED::mailto:DICKERR2@ihs.org>
Website: www.ihsdesmoines.org <BLOCKED::http://www.ihsdesmoines.org/>
________________________________
From: nifl-health@nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-health@nifl.gov] On Behalf Of
Jill Linnell
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 11:51 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:4557] dosing cups for health literacy program
We are currently developing a health literacy curriculm to use with
patients in pediatric waiting rooms. The curriculum addresses dosing
errors by encouraging parents to use dosing syringes and dosing cups
rather than common kitchen spoons when giving their children liquid
medications.
Currently we are seeking to buy or obtain dosing cups to give away to
our families and have discovered that the majority of dosing cups
available to purchase are very difficult to use from a health literacy
perspective. Many have marks only for 1/2 tsp, 1 tsp, and 1 tbsp,
despite the fact that many medicines are prescribed in doses of 1.5 or 2
tsp.
Does anyone know of dosing cups that are easy to read and have all of
the markings by half teaspoons in addition to cc's or ml's (which may be
easier to understand for patients from other countries).
Thank you,
Jill Linnell
Bellevue Hospital Center
New York, NY
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