Confusing Instructions for Children’s OTC Medicine

Parents who try to give their children accurate amounts of over-the-counter liquid medicine encounter unexpected complications. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed dosing instructions on the label of 200 children’s medicines. They included cough and cold remedies, pain and stomach medicine, as well as allergy drugs.
The researchers found that the measuring devices included with the products were often inconsistent with the instructions on the label. One in four of the medications did not contain any dosing device. Almost all of the others had devices that not marked with the doses recommended on the label. Some of the discrepancies made it very difficult to deliver the correct dose.
Instructions to use a teaspoon or tablespoon are particularly confusing. Many people grab whatever spoon is in the drawer, but household spoons are notoriously inaccurate. This can lead to under or overdosing. In some cases this could be dangerous for a child’s health.