Aim: Due to a lack of age-appropriate formulations, administration of drugs to children remains a challenge. This study aimed to identify the problems experienced in both the outpatient setting and the clinical setting.prospective study at the Sophia Children's Hospital, The Netherlands. The study comprised of a structured interview on drug manipulations with parents visiting the outpatient clinic, and an observational study of drug manipulations by nurses at the wards.Results: A total of 201 questionnaires were collected, accounting for 571 drugs and 169 manipulations (30%). Drug substances that were most often mentioned as manipulated were macrogol (n = 23), esomeprazole (n = 15), paracetamol (n = 8), methylphenidate (n = 7) and melatonin (n = 7). Of all manipulated medicines, 93/169 (55%) were manipulated according to the instructions or recommendations of the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) or patient information leaflet. During the observational study, manipulation was performed by 21/35 of observed nurses (60%), of whom 11 deviated from the hospital protocol for manipulation or SmPC (52%). Conclusion:Manipulation was a widely used method to administer drugs to children.Validated information regarding manipulation of drugs for both parents and nursing staff is needed.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.Oral drug manipulation for paediatric patients van der Vossen et al.
Objectives To quantify the availability of authorised, age-appropriate paediatric medicines in clinical practice in the Netherlands and to identify gaps by assessing dispensing practice in a paediatric hospital. Methods The availability of age-appropriate formulations was assessed by conducting a survey on the use of pharmacy compounded medicines among the paediatric hospitals in the Netherlands, and by analysing dispensing data of oral medication from the inpatient pharmacy of the largest paediatric hospital in the Netherlands. The age-appropriateness of the dispensed formulations was assessed on two aspects: dose-capability and acceptability. Liquid drug products that are unsuitable due to the presence of potentially harmful excipients, were identified based on the dosage in clinical practice. results For 129 out of 139 drug substances included in the survey (93%), at least one of the eight respondents stated to use a pharmacy compounded product to meet the needs of their paediatric patients. The age-appropriateness of medicines dispensed from the inpatient pharmacy increased with age, and was higher for non-intensive care unit (ICU) patients than for ICU patients. We identified 15 drug products causing excipient exposure above the European Medicines Agency-recommended values. Conclusions This study confirms there is still a large need for age-appropriate formulations in daily clinical practice. Pharmacy compounding for paediatric patients remains essential for many indications. The need for potentially harmful excipients in compounded products should be critically assessed.
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