A report that has appeared in the publication known as the Journal of Advanced Nursing has stated that medicines, which are split, are the worst to consume. It has further been stated by researchers at the Ghent University, Belgium that the consumption of such drugs can lead to serious clinical risks.

In the study, scientists had provided such medicines to five participants. People had been asked to use three different techniques to split eight different sized tablets. The methods which were used include, a specialist splitting device, a knife and a scissors.

It was found by the scientists that medicines, which were split by the participants, were much different than the actual expected dose. It was reported that 31% of the tablets had a different the expected dose.

It was also found that the best accuracy was found in the professional splitting device, which reported errors of just 13%. The drugs that were split happen to be those for Parkinson’s, heart failure and arthritis.

The Lead Author of the study, Dr. Charlotte Verrue informed that drugs are usually split to improve the dosage of drugs, apart from making it easier for patients to swallow the medicine and to save costs. Though, she added the basic problem was that drug splitting was not always accurate and a substantial amount of the required drug was lost during the process.