Effectiveness and infant acceptance of the Rx medibottle versus the oral syringe

Study Objective. To compare the effectiveness and infant acceptance of drug delivery of the Rx medibottle with the standard oral syringe. Design. Prospective open-label, randomized, crossover clinical study Setting. General pediatric outpatient clinic at an urban university. Subjects. Thirty healthy, bottle-fed infants, aged 2-14 months, receiving r outine vaccinations. Intervention. Each infant received a single dose of acetaminophen (Tempra s yrup), with one-half delivered by the Rx medibottle and one-half delivered with an oral syringe. Measurements and Main Results. Three raters independently evaluated effecti veness and infant acceptance of each drug-delivery device. Effectiveness wa s based on the percentage of infants receiving 100% of the intended dose. i nfant acceptance was scored using a validated infant medication acceptance scale (MAS, 10 = highest level). Significantly more infants received 100% o f the intended dose with the Rx medibottle (93.3%) than with the oral syrin ge (56.7%, p=0.0074). Infants had a significantly higher mean MAS score whe n using the Rx medibottle (8.3 +/- 1.8 vs 7.3 +/- 1.7, p=0.002). In additio n, a significantly higher percentage had ideal MAS scores of 9 or above wit h the Rx medibottle (73%) compared with the oral syringe (17%, p=0.0001). Conclusion. The Rx medibottle was more effective and had a higher level of infant acceptance than the oral syringe. Although further studies are neces sary, this suggests that the Rx medibottle may be a better method of delive ring liquid drug and may increase infant adherence.