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A Scale For Assessing The Severity Of Diseases And Adverse Drug Reactions: Application To Drug Benefit And Risk, Ronald J. Tallarida, Rodney B. Murray, Carl Eiben

Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Faculty Papers

Physicians were interviewed to assess their willingness to risk adverse drug reactions among patients. These untoward reactions were ranked according to severity and weighted against the primary illness being treated. A specially designed questionnaire in the form of a matrix was used. Severity was divided into seven classes denoted by progressively increasing numerical scores, W₁ to W₇, whose values could be calculated from analysis of the completed questionnaires. The questionnaires presented several cases, in each of which an illness of specified severity was to be treated with a drug whose untoward reactions differ in severity from that …