We asked a range of parents, carers and grandparents why they think children sometimes don’t take their medicines.

A “word cloud” was created using the quotes from parents/guardians. The larger the word, the more frequently it was used. Some phrases were shortened or combined, for example “odour” was combined with “smell”.

This was a really simple exercise conducted at ThinkTank Science museum with 50 adults yet the findings matched those found in much longer and more extensive surveys.

We also spoke to the adults about how they encourage children to take medicines and again we got a range of answers from reward charts to making medicines more fun. This was a really interesting finding as although we want to reduce any barriers associated with taking medicines we really don’t want to make them too appealing to children.

We hope to expand on this work and highlight both the current issues with medicines and to provide practical help as to what can be done to help children who require these medicines.