London - One in four babies is being given too much paracetamol by “over-confident” GPs and parents, a major study claims.
Experts warn that in very rare cases too much of the painkiller can cause liver damage.
The study found that parents often give their children Calpol or similar medicines containing paracetamol at home before going to the GP who then prescribes yet another painkiller.
It said 22 percent of babies aged between one and three months had been given an overdose of paracetamol over a 12-month period, with another five percent who were likely to have been given an overdose.
Official guidelines state that babies aged between three and 12 months should be given no more than 240mg of paracetamol a day - the equivalent of just two teaspoons of Calpol.
But the researchers warn that many parents will give babies half a teaspoon every few hours on top of another painkilling medicine prescribed by their GP, which is far too much.
The study, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, looked at data from prescriptions given to 35,839 children in Scotland in 2006. It found that well over half - 57 percent - of prescriptions were wrong, and either too high or too low.
Babies aged one to three months old were at the highest risk of being given an overdose, with 27 percent of prescriptions being too high.
But by contrast a quarter of children aged six to 12 years old were not given enough paracetamol, so were likely to be in considerable pain.
Astonishingly, the research also found that 15 percent of medicines handed out had not come with any instructions saying how much should be given.
Dr James McLay, one of the study’s authors, said parents and GPs were “over-confident” in prescribing paracetamol.
But he added it was very difficult to know exactly how much of the drug a child needed and it depended on their age and their weight. “Paracetamol is so widely prescribed we’ve become over-confident,” he said. “Parents may prescribe paracetamol routinely and then if they go to their GP they may be prescribed an additional medicine. When using any medicine you have to follow the instructions and work out the appropriate dose.”
Dr McLay, from the department of medicine at the University of Aberdeen, said the study was the first to describe the patterns of paracetamol prescribing by primary care physicians in the community.
He added that it was worrying to discover that just over half of the prescriptions failed to comply with basic recommendations on dosage amounts from the British National Formulary for Children.
“We know from other studies that around half of patients do not understand official dosage recommendations for medicines such as paracetamol, and not taking care over dosing instructions can leave parents in a state of confusion, or strengthen the public perception that paracetamol is harmless,” he said.
There have been some reports of children prescribed too much paracetamol suffering liver damage. Although this is rare it can be extremely serious. - Daily Mail