Amie Bedgood, Austin Community College
Pediatric Dosing
Dosages for medication administration to pediatric patients are almost always determined by the patient's size (height and weight). However, most reference manuals for medications focus primarily on the adult dosages. Therefore, the healthcare provider must be able to determine the appropriate dosage for the pediatric patient when given the adult dosage. Several different methods may be used to determine the correct dosage of medication for a pediatric patient. The methods that will be discussed in this module are:
- Nomogram Method
- Fried's Rule
- Young's Rule
- Clark's Rule
- Parkland's Formula
It is very important to maintain precision when using these rules to determine the correct dose of medication for the pediatric patient. Therefore, it is suggested to use the following rounding rules:
Weight Doses (mg)
- When calculating doses in weights, medications that are less than 1 mg should be rounded two decimal places (hundredths place).
- Doses that are 1mg - 10 mg should be rounded to one decimal place (tenths place).
- Doses greater than 10 mg should be rounded to the whole number.
Volume Doses (mL)
- Doses that are less than 1 milliliter should be rounded to two decimal places (hundredths place).
- Doses greater than 1 milliliter should be rounded to one decimal place (tenths place).