ArticleMedicine, health care, and philosophy2019
How to distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization?
Article in Medicine, health care, and philosophy, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effectiveness of therapeutic footwear for children: A systematic review.Journal of foot and ankle research · 2020Pooled it
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- Effect of Supplementation withNutrients · 2020Trial
- How to deal with controversies in the evaluation of medicalization: a case study of PMS and PMDD.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2026Article
- Health care crisis: looking beyond the obvious: Part 3: Roadmap for an equitable and sustainable health care system.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Health care crisis: looking beyond the obvious: Part 2: Drawing inspiration from the planetary boundaries concept.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Overmedicalisation of childhood: what paediatricians and child health professionalsBMJ paediatrics open · 2026Article
- Distinguishing social and medical traits: perspectives of scientists using polygenic scores.Journal of community genetics · 2026Article
- International Trends in Antidepressant Consumption: a 10-year Comparative Analysis (2010-2020).The Psychiatric quarterly · 2025Observational
- Herbal medicine in chronic wounds in Calabria region of Italy: an ethnographic study.Frontiers in sociology · 2025Article
- Rethinking medicalization: unequal relations, hegemonic medicalization, and the medicalizing dividend.Theory and society · 2025Article
- [Experiences and subjective transformations: suffering and coercion in the use of psychotropic drugs in psychiatric treatment in Chile].Salud colectiva · 2024Article
- Self-medication among general population in the European Union: prevalence and associated factors.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- The effect of an innovative payment method on inpatient volume and bed resources and their regional distribution: the case of a central province in China.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Assessing post-abortion care using the WHO quality of care framework for maternal and newborn health: a cross-sectional study in two African hospitals in humanitarian settings.Reproductive health · 2024Article
- Information from ecological momentary assessments lead to over-medicalization: Yes.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2024Article
- The medicalization of ethics or ethicalization of neuroscience: Toward a conceptual re-examination.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2024Article
- Beyond the traditional distinctions of genome editing: evaluating a vulnerability framework.Frontiers in genome editing · 2024Article
- A Manifesto in Defense of Pain Complexity: A Critical Review of Essential Insights in Pain Neuroscience.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Does Age Influence the Preoperative Condition and, Thus, the Outcome in Endocarditis Patients?Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Is medicalization always harmful? When does medicine overstep its proper boundaries? The aim of this article is to outline the pragmatic criteria for distinguishing between medicalization and over-medicalization. The consequences of considering a phenomenon to be a medical problem may take radically different forms depending on whether the problem in question is correctly or incorrectly perceived as a medical issue. Neither indiscriminate acceptance of medicalization of subsequent areas of human existence, nor criticizing new medicalization cases just because they are medicalization can be justified. The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization; (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization. The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.