Exploration of Availability as a Signal Indicator about Youden Index

With the advancement of medical technology and the increasing use of drugs also came the increase in the rates of adverse drug reactions, posing a serious risk and burden to both the patients and their treating doctors, as well as a significant financial burden in the society. In drug monitoring, the voluntary reporting system of the adverse drug reactions serves a very important role in confirming the signal information about the drugs that have been sold. Signal information in this context refers to information that requires continuous observation because a causal relationship cannot be excluded even when there is insufficient data or evidence to establish any concrete causal relationship. The aim of this particular study is to assess the applicability of Youden index, which has originally been used as a tool to evaluate the accuracy of binary diagnostic tests in diagnostic medicine, as a potential signal information indicator in adverse drug reaction monitoring. This was achieved by comparing the formulae of Youden index with those of the already existing report information indicators, as well as the utilisation of the data obtained from simulation experiments.