Stop spoon dosing: milliliter instructions reduce inclination to spoon dosing

BACKGROUND: Does the use of teaspoon units in dose recommendations on Drug Facts panels of liquid medicine lead to dosing errors and could any such errors be reduced if millimeter units were used instead? FINDINGS: Participants given dosing instructions in teaspoon units were twice as likely to choose a kitchen teaspoon as those given instructions in milliliter units (31.3 vs. 15.4 %). CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that spoon usage—and the inherent risk of dosage errors—could be reduced by more than 50 % simply by changing the units of measurement given in dosing instructions.