Urine Drug Screening: What Pediatric Clinicians Need to Know to Optimize Patient Care.

Abstract

Urine drug screening (UDS) is a laboratory test frequently used to screen for drugs of abuse, monitor for medication compliance, evaluate for suspected drug intoxication or overdose, and in office-based pain contracts (Kale, 2019; Standridge, Adams, & Zotos, 2010). In children and adolescents, UDS may be used to prevent substance use, evaluate for suspected drug use or intoxication, or as part of substance abuse treatment (Levy & Siqueira, 2014). When using UDS as a tool to make clinical decisions about high-risk medications, it is important to understand the differences between UDS testing modalities, common causes of false-positive or false-negative results, and the detection window of specific medications.