Pill splitting 'risky'
Thursday 13th January 2011
The common practice of pill splitting could have serious negative consequences, according to a new study.
Research, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing said that some pills cannot be split exactly in half and this is risky when there is a narrow margin between the right dosage and an overdose.
Participants were asked to split eight different types of pills into halves or quarters using a kitchen knife, scissors/hands or a pill splitter.
It was found that 31 per cent of the pill slices deviated from the recommended dose by over 15 per cent while 14 per cent were more than 25 per cent wrong.
This comes after research published in journal Arthritis & Rheumatism claimed that two of the drugs most commonly used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis are less effective on people who smoke than those who do not.
Written by Martin Lambert
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