Medical experts have warned parents that using domestic spoons to dispense children’s medicine could lead to overdosing or getting too little medication as some of them were found to hold two to three times as much liquid as other spoons. A study looked at 71 teaspoons and 49 tablespoons collected from 25 households in Attica, Greece, the International Journal of Clinical Practice reports.
“A parent using one of the biggest domestic teaspoons would be giving their child 192 percent more medicine than a parent using the smallest teaspoon,” said Matthew E. Falagas. “The difference was 100 per cent for the tablespoons,” added Falagas, professor and director of the Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences in Athens, Greece.
“This increases the chance of a child receiving an overdose or indeed too little medication,” Falagas said. The women who took part in the study were aged between 24 and 84 years with an average age of 48 years, according to a statement by Alfa Institute.