ArticleHealth expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy2014
On defensive decision making: how doctors make decisions for their patients.
Article in Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How defensive medicine is defined in European medical literature: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2022Pooled it
- Exploring the impact of workplace violence on defensive medicine and patient outcomes: an empirical analysis using regression discontinuity.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- The Effect of Clinical Ambiguity on the Decision-Making Process Among Intensive Care Unit Providers in Northern America Using Clinical Vignettes in Mixed Methods Study.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2025Article
- More exposure to medical injury news, better doctor-patient communication, but less doctors' professional identity: A moderated chain mediation model.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Context and general practitioner decision-making - a scoping review of contextual influence on antibiotic prescribing.BMC family practice · 2021Article
- Reducing Unnecessary Noninvasive Testing for Inpatients With Unstable Angina: The RUNIT Protocol.CJC open · 2021Article
- Physician perspectives on discussions with parents of infants with suspected ureteropelvic junction obstruction.Journal of pediatric surgery · 2021Article
- A mixed methods investigation of end-of-life surrogate decisions among older adults.BMC palliative care · 2020Article
- How defensive medicine is defined and understood in European medical literature: protocol for a systematic review.BMJ open · 2020Article
- On the Likelihood of Surrogates Conforming to the Substituted Judgment Standard When Making End-of-Life Decisions for Their Partner.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2019Article
- " The best interest of the adolescent " : Exploring doctors ' decision to proceed with treatment of sexual reproductive health without parental consent.Malaysian family physician : the official journal of the Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia · 2019Article
- Article
- Exploring How Accountability Affects the Medical Decisions We Make for Other People.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Factors Related to Physician Clinical Decision-Making for African-American and Hispanic Patients: a Qualitative Meta-Synthesis.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2018Article
- Attitudes towards Prosthodontic Clinical Decision-Making for Edentulous Patients among South West Deanery Dental Foundation Year One Dentists.Dentistry journal · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn the past decade, the number of lawsuits for medical malpractice has risen significantly. This could affect the way doctors make decisions for their patients.
objectiveTo investigate whether and why doctors practice defensive medicine with their patients.
designA questionnaire study was conducted in general practice departments of eight metropolitan hospitals in Spain, between January and February 2010. SETTING AND
participantsEighty general practitioners (48% men; mean age 52 years) with an average of 15.3 years of experience and their 80 adult patients (42% men; mean age 56 years) participated in the study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire involving choices between a risky and a conservative treatment. One group of doctors made decisions for their patients. Another group of doctors predicted what their patients would decide for themselves. Finally, all doctors and patients made decisions for themselves and described the factors they thought influenced their decisions.
resultsDoctors selected much more conservative medical treatments for their patients than for themselves. Most notably, they did so even when they accurately predicted that the patients would select riskier treatments. When asked about the reasons for their decisions, most doctors (93%) reported fear of legal consequences. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsDoctors' decisions for their patients are strongly influenced by concerns of possible legal consequences. Patients therefore cannot blindly follow their doctor's advice. Our study, however, suggests a plausible method that patients could use to get around this problem: They could simply ask their doctor what he or she would do in the patient's situation.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.