Pediatric pharmacists are constantly faced with the challenges of supporting children and caregivers for whom the difficulties of swallowing medicines can be a daily struggle. Most medicines are only available as tablets and capsules, and where liquid alternatives exist, these products often have issues with palatability and high costs. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the swallowing spray, Pill Glide, could help children in taking their solid and liquid medicines. This open label pilot study compared the spray with a behavioral approach alone, the current standard of care at the pediatric hospital. Patients were children on long-term drug therapies, either transitioning from liquid preparations to tablets and capsules, or known to be experiencing swallowing difficulties. Using age-adapted diaries, patients self-reported the difficulty of taking medicines on a 6-point hedonic scale for 2 weeks before the intervention, and then for 1 week while using Pill Glide. Data were analyzed from 10 children aged 6 to 16 years, with an average burden of 3.5 tablets per day. Pill Glide (strawberry was the most popular flavor) was shown to significantly decrease the overall medicine taking difficulty score by 0.93 (range, 0.33–1.53), almost 1 hedonic face point on the scale used (P = .002). There was insufficient data for liquid medicines. Pill Glide could help children with pill swallowing, thus improving patient acceptability of medicines and potentially adherence. It could also be implemented as a useful cost-saving intervention because solid dosage forms are cheaper.
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December 2016
Case Report|
December 01 2016
Can a Flavored Spray (Pill Glide) Help Children Swallow Their Medicines? A Pilot Study
Mamta Jagani, MPharm;
Mamta Jagani, MPharm
aGreat Ormond Street Hospital for Children National Health Service Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom;
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Hélène Legay, PharmD;
Hélène Legay, PharmD
aGreat Ormond Street Hospital for Children National Health Service Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom;
bSchool of Pharmacy, and
cCamden and Islington National Health Service Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom; and
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Sejal R Ranmal, MPharm;
Sejal R Ranmal, MPharm
bSchool of Pharmacy, and
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Julie Bertrand, PhD;
Julie Bertrand, PhD
dUCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom;
eUnité Mixte de Recherche 1137, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
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Kuan Ooi, MPharm;
Kuan Ooi, MPharm
aGreat Ormond Street Hospital for Children National Health Service Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom;
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Catherine Tuleu, PharmD
bSchool of Pharmacy, and
Address correspondence to Catherine Tuleu, PharmD, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutics, University College London School of Pharmacy, 29–39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, United Kingdom. E-mail: c.tuleu@ucl.ac.uk
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Address correspondence to Catherine Tuleu, PharmD, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutics, University College London School of Pharmacy, 29–39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, United Kingdom. E-mail: c.tuleu@ucl.ac.uk
POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: Pill Glide sprays were donated by FLAVORx, Inc. The authors have indicated they have no other financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
Pediatrics (2016) 138 (6): e20160680.
Article history
Accepted:
August 22 2016
Citation
Mamta Jagani, Hélène Legay, Sejal R Ranmal, Julie Bertrand, Kuan Ooi, Catherine Tuleu; Can a Flavored Spray (Pill Glide) Help Children Swallow Their Medicines? A Pilot Study. Pediatrics December 2016; 138 (6): e20160680. 10.1542/peds.2016-0680
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