IV rate, round or not to round

[RNmanou]

This is quite confusing because it has different considerations from different books.

1. When calculating IV flow, should the result be round up? EX: should it be 40 ml/hr or 40.1 ml/hr if the result after calculation is 40.14.

2. Generally when to round up? When to round down? What should be rounded and what should not be?

Thanks

[Cali_Nurse_209]

From my understanding and what I learned I thought IV flow had to be a whole number. For example, 40.1 ml/hr would just be 40 and if it was like 40.5 ml/hr you would round up to 41ml/hr. I just got done reviewing dosage calculations and that's pretty much what it said. Maybe some are different. Idk

[Cali_Nurse_209]

In the book I have have it said to round up if it's 5+ and round down when it's 4 or below. When I took applied mathematics for pharmacology, I remember that book and my professor said to round down for pediatric doses but this book doesn't mention it. Also, this book says when converting lbs to kg to calculate to 3 decimal places and not round the kg, only the final answer. I reviewed a book called Dosage Calculations Demystified and luckily it was pretty much what I had already learned and knew, it wasn't that bad but there are other books out there. Maybe others can give more info on this.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

It is round up if it's 5+ and round down when it's 4 or below. I also round down for peds. Believe it or not ths rounding rules avry slightly school to school. I found this and it is what I was taught.

http://www.aultmancollege.edu/Files/Calculations%20and%20Rounding%20Rules.pdf

[malestunurse]

This caught me out the other day when I was practicing drug calcls on the interactive component of the fundamentals of nursing book, they were rounding to 2 decimal places. I keep meaning to ask my lecturer about it.

[Cali_Nurse_209]

malestunurse said:

This caught me out the other day when I was practicing drug calcls on the interactive component of the fundamentals of nursing book, they were rounding to 2 decimal places. I keep meaning to ask my lecturer about it.

Yea, in this book I have it says to calculate to 3 decimal places but round the final answer to 2 decimal places depending on the problem. But when doing weights only round the final answer.

[griffeyamy1]

1.) if you have a leading zero round to hundreth 0.1879 = 0.19 2.) if a leading whole number round to tenths 10.562 = 10.6 3.) if calculating gtt/min round to nearest whole number 21.325 = 21gtt 4.) if calculating ml follow first two rules. Often times in school the problems are not quite finished out so sometime mL and mg have decimals. *** if leading zero is present and answer comes out clean like 0.5 or 0.2 never add an extra zero to fill to hundreths place