Objectives: Pediatric dosing can be an intimidating task for student pharmacists, especially those with less didactic training or experience. Student pharmacists may not feel comfortable, confident, or adequately trained to assess and recommend medication doses for children. There are currently no published data on this topic. The objective of this study is to determine student pharmacists’ comfort and ability to assess and recommend medication doses in pediatric patients.

Methods: An invitation to participate in an online survey was distributed to all professional-phase pharmacy students within a single college of pharmacy at a liberal arts university. The survey included 21 questions about respondent demographics, self-reported comfort and confidence with pediatric dosing, and ability to assess and recommend doses. Brief pediatric patient cases were provided and respondents were asked to calculate doses via free response questions and to assess dosing regimens via multiple-choice questions. The survey was approved by the university’s institutional review board.

Results: A total of 53 participants completed the survey with a class-year distribution of 19% first-year, 23% second-year, 33% third-year, and 25% fourth-year. Eighty-six percent of respondents indicated that they were comfortable assessing dosing recommendations and 96% were comfortable calculating a dose. Fifty-three percent were comfortable choosing a dose, 43% were comfortable with choosing a frequency, and 38% were comfortable assessing an overall treatment regimen. Similarities in self-reported confidence were observed with 77% of respondents indicating they were confident assessing dosing recommendation, 96% were confident calculating a dose, 47% were confident choosing a dose, 45% were confident choosing a frequency, and 38% were confident assessing a treatment regimen. Eighty-two percent were able to accurately calculate an amoxicillin/clavulanate dose for a child. Respondents’ ability to accurately assess a dosing regimen varied for vancomycin (86%) and ceftriaxone (68%).

Conclusions: In this survey, there was general alignment of self-reported comfort and confidence but a wide range of responses within the comfort and confidence categories of assessing recommendations, calculating doses, and choosing doses and frequencies. Respondents’ self-reported comfort and confidence with assessing and calculating doses were slightly higher than their accuracy. The results of this survey show that some students can accurately calculate and assess a pediatric dose, but there are still opportunities for improvement.