Tablettdelare på måndag, kniv på tisdag eller sax på onsdag? : En enkätstudie om att dela tabletter

Tablets are the most common type of solid dosages, made to resist attrition and fracture. When a tablet contains too high dose, it is necessary to split it and use only half at a time. The most common ways to split tablets are: breaking it by hand, using a tablet-splitter, a knife or scissors. The aim with this paper is to show how pharmacy customers split tablets when they must and which splitting methods they prefer. The data was collected by interviewing all pharmacy customers with a prescription dosage where the tablets could be split. 171 interviews were conducted during a two-week period at eight community pharmacies throughout Sweden. 89% of the customers with a prescription where the tablets could be split, did so. 49% broke the tablets by hand, 31% used a knife and only 14% used a tablet-splitter. Psycholeptics (ATC group N05) tablets were split most frequently (31%), agents acting on the Renin-angiotensin system (ATC group C09) (13%), and psycoanaleptics (ATC group N06) (11%). Once the patients have found a way of splitting tablets they are comfortable with, they tend to stick to that method. Only 16% reported that they had tried more than one method. When asked if they manage to split the tablets into even doses or if they took the larger part of an unevenly split tablet, 60% answered yes; only 6.5% were worried that the difference in dose size would affect their medication. A few patients (13.5%) stated that they would like tablets with a lower dose, so that they don’t have to split them. Most studies revealed that elderly can take lower drug doses. We found that 116 (68%) of the patients in our study were elderly and need to divide their tablets. Only 4 patients refused to split their tablets, acting against the doctor’s recommendation on the prescription. We were unable to ascertain why, but it might be due to the drug’s side effects. 2.4% of all pharmacy customers who collected drugs during this two-week period had a prescription with splittable tablets. If we generalize this result to all of Sweden, around 40000 individuals use splittable tablets