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Screening criteria for adult use of 40 drugs and pediatric use of 10 drugs are presented. The reasons for presenting the criteria are to (1) document the specific screening criteria applied in a number of drug usage review studies, (2) provide a starting point for other groups wishing to develop criteria for drug usage review and (3) seek comments to be used in improving the criteria.

A retrospective drug usage review was performed on 1,033 randomly sampled prescription orders from the outpatient pharmacy of a hospital and clinic system. Prescription orders were screened in accordance with criteria based on daily dosage, length of therapy or quantity dispenced, diagnosis, and labeling. The results of the study point to a number of potential prescribing problems. In addition, the study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting and analyzing drug usage data on a retrospective basis.