Question

9. The physician orders an IV of 3 L to infuse at 100 mL/hr. The drop factor is 20. At what rate in gtt/min should the IV infuse? ____ gtt/min Round to the nearest whole number.

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Answer 1

To calculate the drops per minute, the drop factor is needed. The formula for calculating the IV flow rate (drip rate) is… total volume (in mL) divided by time (in min), multiplied by the drop factor (in gtts/mL), which equals the IV flow rate in gtts/min.

So according to this formula we need to figure out the time .

So to figure out time we have following formula

Infusion time (hr)= total voloume in ml÷infusion time (hr)

And we have 3L total voloume that is equal to 3000ml and infusion time per hour is 100ml/hr

So by putting this formula we will get time

3000ml÷100ml/hr=30 hours.

So now we will put this calculated time in our formula for gtt/min calculation.

3000ml÷1800×20 =33.33

Where 3000ml is total voloume

1800 is min. Which is the convertion of 30 hours in minutes.

20 is drop factor.

So the answer is 33gtt/min.