Efficacy of flow restrictors in limiting access of liquid medications by young children.
J Pediatr
; 163(4): 1134-9.e1, 2013 Oct.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23896185
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To assess whether adding flow restrictors (FRs) to liquid medicine bottles can provide additional protection against unsupervised medication ingestions by young children, even when the child-resistant closure is not fully secured. STUDYDESIGN:
In April and May 2012, we conducted a block randomized trial with a convenience sample of 110 3- and 4-year-old children from 5 local preschools. Participants attempted to remove test liquid from an uncapped bottle with an FR and a control bottle without an FR (with either no cap or an incompletely closed cap).RESULTS:
All but 1 (96%; 25 of 26) of the open control bottles and 82% (68 of 83) of the incompletely closed control bottles were emptied within 2 minutes. Only 6% (7 of 110) of the bottles with FRs were emptied during the 10-minute testing period, none before 6 minutes. Overall, children removed less liquid from the bottles with FRs than from the open or incompletely closed control bottles without FRs (both P < .001). All children assigned open control bottles and 90% of those assigned incompletely closed control bottles removed ≥ 25 mL of liquid. In contrast, 11% of children removed ≥ 25 mL of liquid from uncapped bottles with FRs. Older children (aged 54-59 months) were more successful than younger children at removing ≥ 25 mL of liquid (P = .002) from bottles with FRs.CONCLUSION:
Our findings suggest that adding FRs to liquid medicine bottles limits the accessibility of their contents to young children and could complement the safety provided by current child-resistant packaging.Palavras-chave
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Intoxicação
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Preparações Farmacêuticas
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Embalagem de Medicamentos
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Segurança do Paciente
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
Limite:
Child
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Child, preschool
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Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2013
Tipo de documento:
Article