A comprehensive evaluation system of Chinese patent medicine (CPM) is considered as a critical tool to measure the value of CPM. The "guideline for multi-dimensional and multi-criteria comprehensive evaluation for Chinese patent medicine" (abbreviated as guideline) has been released, proposing a comprehensive evaluation system of CPM (1st) comprising six aspects: safety, effectiveness, economy, applicability, scientificity and standardization. This paper elaborated the development method and explained the evaluation dimensions and criteria, so as to help the researchers understand and use the comprehensive evaluation system in the future when evaluating CPM.
