Going by the findings of a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, January 5 edition, the dependence on a kitchen spoon for measuring liquid medicines, such as cough and cold syrups, can more often lead to either an overdose or an under-dose of the medicine.

The researchers, led by Dr. Brian Wansink, Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, asked 195 university students, who were former cold and flu patients, to pour a 5 mL - comparable to 1 teaspoon - dose of cold medicine into different-sized kitchen spoons.

The research team found that the amount of cold medicine that the participants poured varied directly with the measuring spoon’s size of the spoon, and was “underdosed by 8.4% when using medium-sized spoons and overdosed by 11.6% when using larger spoons.”

Noting that the improper dosage problem was rooted in the size of the spoons, Wansink said that participants generally poured less medicine in a medium-sized tablespoon; and more in a bigger spoon. Wansink further elucidated that “participants had above-average confidence that the doses they poured into both spoons would be equally effective.”

The researchers said that though the result of one single 8-12 percent dosing error in a one-teaspoon dosage may appear to be minimal, such overdosing and underdosing errors get accumulated in the case of tired and sick people who take 4-or-8-hourly doses for several days.