A nurse is preparing to administer 400 mL of 0.9% sodium chloride IV over 8 hr. The drop factor of the manual IV tubing is 60 gtt/mL. The nurse should set the manual IV infusion to deliver how many gtt/min? (Round the answer to the nearest whole number. Use a leading zero if it applies. Do not use a trailing zero.)

Step 1 is to calculate the total time for the infusion in minutes:. 8 hr × 60 min/hr = 480 min. Step 2 is to calculate the gtt/min using the formula Volume in mL÷Time in min/Drop factor. (400 mL ÷ 480 min) × 60 gtt/mL. Step 3 is to calculate the intermediate value of the mL/min:. 400 mL ÷ 480 min = 0.8333 mL/min. Step 4 is to calculate the gtt/min:. 0.8333 mL/min × 60 gtt/mL = 49.998 gtt/min. Step 5 is to round the answer to the nearest whole number:. 49.998 gtt/min rounds to 50 gtt/min. The final calculated answer is 50 gtt/min.