Using Kitchen Spoons Ups Risk of Dosing Errors

Jan. 5 -- MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that you should steer clear of using ordinary spoons when taking or giving liquid medicines, because the practice raises the risk of potentially dangerous dosing mistakes.

"Clearly we know that there are a lot of people -- despite all the alternatives they are offered -- who open the kitchen drawer and grab a spoon to serve up their liquid medicine," observed study co-author Koert van Ittersum, an assistant professor of marketing in the College of Management at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

"But previous work has already shown that the size of your mug or glass influences how much one pours," he noted. "Just as the size of a plate influences how much one eats. So, here we have found that utensils also have an effect on dosing because our mind plays tricks on us. And so spoon size matters."

The findings from van Ittersum and his colleague, Brian Wansink of Cornell University, are published as a letter in the Jan. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors point out that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration already cautions against the use of any kitchen utensil for measuring liquid medications.

To gauge the potential for incorrect dosing, the researchers tracked the dosing behaviors of 195 college students who had visited a university health clinic around the time the study was launched.

Each student was first asked to pour out exactly 5 milliliters of a liquid cold medicine, using a normal-sized teaspoon so they could clearly visualize how much that amount would be.

Following that exercise, each participant was randomly asked to attempt two more medicine pours: one into a medium-sized tablespoon and a second into an even larger spoon. Confidence levels were assessed to see how secure the students were in their ability to correctly pour the proper dosage.

Despite the fact that most students had "above average" confidence that they had poured accurate doses while using one or the other tablespoon, the authors found that dosages actually varied depending on the size of the spoon.