It is vital that parents worldwide should understand the proper usage of medicines. Rebekah Moles, lead researcher Many parents give their children too large or frequent doses of non-prescription medicines for fever, coughs and colds, putting their health at risk, says an Australian study.
"Many children are being put at risk
by parents' over-use of widely available over-the-counter medicines for fever, coughs and colds," concluded the study by University of Sydney researchers presented at a conference of the International Pharmaceutical Federation.
"We were surprised and concerned to find that some people thought that medicines must be safe because you can buy them without prescription," said Rebekah Moles, who headed up the study of 97 parents and day-care centre employees.
"Taking all the scenarios together, 44 per cent of participants would have given an incorrect dose and only 64 per cent were able to measure accurately the dose they intended to give," said Moles.
Only 14 per cent managed the fever scenario correctly.
The study noted that 48 per cent of calls in 2008 to the NSW Poisons Information Centre, which receives all out-of-hours calls from across Australia, concerned accidental overdose in children, with 15 per cent needing hospitalisation.
Australia is unlikely to be a special case, the researchers say, and they believe the inappropriate use of children's medicines is widespread throughout the world.
"It is vital that parents worldwide should understand the proper usage of medicines so that they do not continue to put their children's health at risk," said Moles.
