A Child Is Given Wrong Medication Every 8 Minutes, Study Finds
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — A new study finds a child is given the wrong medication every eight minutes.
Researchers in Ohio studied reports over an 11-year period and found 700,000 medication errors in the United States.
The most common mistake was accidentally giving a child medicine more than once.
Henry Spiller, Director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, says this is an easy mistake for parents to make.
“The mom goes into the room, gives the child a dose, comes out. Dad doesn’t know, he also goes into the child and gives another dose and then later they find out that they’ve sort of overdosed their child,” Spiller said. “When you’re about to give out the medication, I know it’s busy and everyone’s fixing dinner and getting kids ready for bed and things, but try and take a moment to kind of put that bubble around you to not be distracted.”
“This is something where the people who are caring for the children really really are interested in their best health, accidentally make these errors,” Spiller added.
Spiller says 97% of the errors happened at home. The study also determined errors peak in the winter.
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