Table 1.
Percentage of paracetamol recovery, leftover and loss for one 500 mg paracetamol tablet crushed in each of 24 crushing devices (n = 3) followed by tapping the powder out.
A significant difference in paracetamol recovery for each crusher compared with the control (whole tablet, n = 10) is indicated (* p < 0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001,—no difference). See Supplementary information for details and images of each crusher and disposable vessel.
Fig 1.
Co-plot of the two approaches to quantifying drug loss during crushing.
Drug concentration was measured by UV (% paracetamol loss = 100 –% recovered) and tablet weight was measured using a balance (% tablet weight loss = weight of crushed tablet recovered / weight of whole tablet x 100). The symbols are the mean measurements derived from powder tapped out of 24 tablet crushers that were used to crush one 500 mg paracetamol tablet; crushers with disposable vessel (●), without disposable vessel (▲), mortar and pestle-like (▼). The linear regression through the means (y = 1.110x−0.064) has R2 = 0.852.
Fig 2.
Comparison of one and two rinses with water on recovery (%) of a 500 mg paracetamol tablet crushed using 12 tablet crushing devices.
A significant difference in recovery between one and two rinses is indicated (* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, ***p<0.001).
Fig 3.
Recovery of 500 mg paracetamol tablet after crushing with the First Crush Automated Pill Crusher Gen 2 when the dry powder was tapped out of the disposable cups, rinsed with water twice, or scraped out with a spoon after mixing with apple sauce, yoghurt or honey.
Bars that do not share the same lower case letter are significantly different (p<0.05).