Fractions

Fractions are commonly used in society, and in medicine. A patient may take 1 1/2 tablets. A physician may request 1/2 normal saline. A pediatric patient may weigh 5 1/2 kilograms. Thus, it is important to know what fractions are and how they affect medication administration.

  1. Fractions are portions of a whole number

  2. To convert fractions to decimals, divide the numerator (the number above or to left of the bar) by the denominator (number below or to right of the bar)

    • For example, 3/4 converted to decimals would be 3 divided by 4... or 0.75

  3. To convert to percentage, simply take the decimal point and move it over two places to the right

    • In the previous example of 0.75 we would move the decimal point two places to the right and the answer is 75.0. We drop the tailing zero and we have 75%

  4. See the table for common fractions and their equivalent decimals and percentages

Try some practice problems, click on drop down for answer

Convert 5/10 to decimal form

0.5 5 divided by 10 is 0.5

Convert 1/8 to decimal form

0.125 1 divided by 8 is 0.125

Convert 3/8 to decimal form

0.375 3 divided by 8 is 0.375

Convert 1 1/4 to decimal form

1.25 focus only on the fraction... 1 divided by 4 is 0.25, then add the whole number back

Convert 1 7/8 to decimal form

1.875 focus only on the fraction... 7 divided by 8 is 0.875, then add whole number back

Convert 1/20 to decimal form

0.05 1 divided by 20 is 0.05

Now that you have the basics on fractions, let's look at decimals.