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Aim: Studies on frequencies of manipulated medicines in paediatric care are common, but there is little knowledge of experiences of pharmacists and registered nurses in this area. The aim of this study was to explore registered nurses' and pharmacists' reasoning in the manipulation of medicines to paediatric inpatients. Methods: Semistructured interviews with twelve registered nurses and seven pharmacists were performed at a Swedish paediatric university hospital. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using content analysis. Results: Four major categories emerged from the analysis of the interviews: medicines management, knowledge, consulting others and organisation. Medicines management involved the process of drug handling, which is prescribing, reconstitution or manipulation and administration. Knowledge concerned both the knowledge base and how healthcare personnel seek information. Consulting others involved colleagues, registered nurses and pharmacists, between registered nurses, pharmacists and physicians and between registered nurses, pharmacists and caregivers. Organisation covered documentation, time and working environment. Conclusion: Both pharmacists and registered nurses stated that manipulation of medicines to paediatric patients was often necessary but felt unsafe due to lack of supporting guidelines. Pharmacists were natural members of the ward team, contributing with specific knowledge about medicines and formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Long term treatment of pediatric patients with oral anticancer drugs (OADs) requires the parents/caregivers to prepare the drug at home. The handling procedures in the home setting are, however, not regulated by Swedish law and the parents are often left without guidance on how to handle OADs in a safe way. Aim: The aim of this study was to increase understanding of how OADs are handled by parents/caregivers in the home setting before and after an intervention. Methods: Parents of pediatric cancer patients were observed and videotaped during their handling of OADs in the home setting before and after the intervention. During the intervention, the parents were provided with written instructions, movie clips and practical training on handling the OADs. Four checklists were used to compare and score the four handling procedures (measuring an oral suspension, cutting tablets, dissolving tablets, and opening capsules) for each parent before and after the intervention. Results: The intervention significantly improved the OAD handling procedures among the studied parents. The median score for correct handling was 19% (IQR: 3.6 to 30%) before the intervention and 89.5% (IQR: 71.5 to 94.5%) after the intervention (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: An intervention comprising practical training and information presented in different forms improved the handling of OADs at home by parents. There is an urgent need to implement this method in all oncology centers in Sweden, educate HCPs to standardize the presentation of information. There is also a great need to provide parents with age-appropriate oral drug formulations from the local hospital pharmacies in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of parents handling oral anticancer drugs in a home setting. Methods: Parents of children with cancer were recruited from a paediatric oncology ward in Sweden to participate in an interview. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to qualitative content analysis. Results: We found the following categories and subcategories: parents' views on the provided information—lack of, too little or contradictory information, and parents' preferences for information delivery; safety over time; correct drug dose; and drug administration. As time passed, most parents adapted to their child's illness, felt safer and found it easier to take in and process any given information. Parents preferred information in different formats (written, movie clips and orally) and in their mother tongue. Many parents were aware of the importance of giving an accurate dose to their child and described the process of drug administration as overwhelming. Conclusion: Parents need to be provided with accurate, timely, nonconflicting and repeated information—in different forms and in their mother tongue—on how to handle oral anticancer drugs at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a registry-based study with the aim of describing and comparing the frequency of manipulations of solid oral and rectal medicines in 2009 and 2019 at inpatient units and an emergency department in a paediatric hospital within a Swedish university hospital. All patients aged 1 month–18 years with oral or rectal administrations were included. In total, 140,791 oral and rectal administrations were included in 2009, and 167,945 oral and rectal administrations were included in 2019. The frequency of patients receiving at least one manipulated oral medicine decreased between the study years, both in inpatient units and in the emergency department (from 19% to 17%, p = 0.0029 and from 11% to 5%, p < 0.0001, respectively). The frequency of patients receiving a manipulated rectal medicine also decreased between the study years, both in inpatient units and in the emergency department (from 22% to 10%, p < 0.0001 and from 35% to 7% 2019, p < 0.0001, respectively). The results show a decrease in the manipulation of both oral and rectal medicines to paediatric patients in 2019 compared to 2009. Even though this implies a safer practice, there is still a pronounced lack of child-friendly dosage forms and suitable strengths enabling the safe administration of medicines to sick children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate pediatrician's acceptance, perception and use of Electronic Prescribing Decision Support Systems (EPDSS) at a tertiary care using Extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2). Qualitative research methodology was applied. Semi-structured questions were developed according to TAM2 model. Pediatricians perceived that the EPDSS is useful and they showed a favorable attitude. However, perceived ease of use and output quality appeared to affect use of EPDSS. Concerns were expressed about complicated screens, difficulty to read and view medication overview of the patient, the navigation requires many clicks and medication system don't meet their need. End users have difficulty of ordering drugs for ploy-clinical patients and they were unable to cancel or stop medications. Junior pediatricians were influenced by senior colleague since they can get better advice about medication order than the system. Applying TAM2 framework has revealed that pediatrician's attitude and acceptance of electronic prescribing system. This study has identified factors that are important for end user acceptance as well as suggestions for system improvement. Although pediatricians are positive to the usefulness of EPDSS, it appears there are some acceptance problems due to ease of use concern and usability issues of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: To investigate the dosing accuracy using split tablets in paediatric patients. Methods: Five brands of tablets (Alvedon®(paracetamol), Catapresan®(clonidine), Hydrocortone®(hydrocortisone), Prednisolon® (prednisolon) and Tavegyl®(clemastine) were split into halves and quarters by hand or by using a tablet splitter. The resulting halves and quarters were weighed. Results: Three out of the five tablet brands passed the test in the Ph. Eur. (European Pharmacopoeia) for subdivision of tablets when split once and when split twice to yield quarters only one of the tablets passed the test. When also applying the limit for relative standard deviation (RSD) from the US Pharmacopoeia only one of the tablet halves passed and the other two was just outside the limit. None of the tablet quarters passed the RSD limit. Conclusion: Our results indicate that tablets larger than 8 mm might be split once. Tablets should not be split more than once, due to uncertainty in dose accuracy. There is a need for more commercially available age-appropriate formulations. Extemporaneously prepared formulations should be considered as an alternative to the use of split tablets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Aim Method Results Conclusions The shift of treatment of paediatric cancer patients to include more care at home puts a lot of pressure on health care professionals (HCPs) to prepare and train parents on safe and correct drug handling at home. Parents must take in and understand the information presented to them while coping with their own fear related to their child's cancer diagnosis. In Sweden, parents are expected to handle and manipulate oral anticancer drugs (OADs) in the home setting. There is however a lack of a standardized method to inform and educate parents on how to handle OADs in a correct way at home.To describe parents' experiences of handling OADs at home after participating in an educational intervention.Educational intervention in the present study aimed to improve parents' knowledge in key concepts that is, handling OADs at home by using information presented in different forms. Fifteen parents to 12 children with cancer were recruited from a paediatric oncology ward in Sweden to participate in an interview. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to qualitative content analysis.Parents' experiences are presented in categories: Relieved stress, Awareness of own exposure, Facilitated my everyday life, Parents need continued support individually. The educational intervention resulted in both positive and negative feelings, increased awareness of drug exposure and correct drug handling at home. Practical training and information presented in different ways facilitated the process of drug handling. To handle the drug correctly at home parents requested to be trained and informed in the beginning of their child's oral drug treatment. In addition, parents requested to be individually approached by HCP to get answers to questions and concerns.This educational intervention study shows promising results for the method used by HCPs to inform and educate parents on complicated topics such as handling OADs at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleeping disturbances are common in children and adolescents and in rare cases signal underlying disease. Complete history and diagnosis are mandatory for treatment. The basis for pharmacologic treatment is unsatisfactory but phenotiazides and benzodiazepines should not be used because of lack of documented effects and potentially serious side effects. Melatonin may be used in selected cases.

Background and Objectives: Clofarabine (CAFdA), one of the newer nucleoside drugs is undergoing a phase II clinical trial for the treatment of pediatric refractory/relapsed acute myeloid and lymphocytic leukemia. Although CAFdA is structurally similar to the clinically established analogs fludarabine and cladribine (CdA), its metabolism and mechanism of actions are significantly different. The present study investigates the in vitro cytotoxicity of CAFdA and CdA in mononuclear cells isolated from 52 patients with chronic lymphocytic (CLL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML)., Design and Methods: We incubated the leukemic cells with drugs for 48 hours and cytotoxicity was then evaluated by the MTT dye assay. We also determined the levels of deoxycytidine and deoxyguanosine kinase with radio-chemical substrate-based assays and used a high performance liquid chromatographic method to measure cellular nucleotides in leukemia cells after 2 hours' incubation., Results: Using equimolar concentrations of CAFdA and CdA, the in vitro cytotoxicity for the population was significantly higher with CAFdA than with CdA (median EC50 for CAFdA 0.12 microM and for CdA 0.15 microM, p<0.001). From the individual estimates the difference in cytotoxicity between CAFdA and CdA was more pronounced in cells from CLL patients (median EC50 for CAFdA 0.08 microM and for CdA 0.16 microM p<0.001) than in those from AML patients. We also found that CAFdA was phosphorylated more efficiently than CdA. No correlations were detected in this study between the levels of CdA and CAFdA nucleotides, enzymes levels and the in vitro responses., Interpretation and Conclusions: The greater in vitro cytotoxicity and cell metabolism of CAFdA compared to CdA confirm the high activity of CAFdA and encourage clinical trials with CAFdA in leukemic patients.