ArticleBMJ open2020
How defensive medicine is defined and understood in European medical literature: protocol for a systematic review.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How prepared are newly qualified allied health professionals for practice in the UK? A systematic review.BMJ open · 2024Pooled it
- Defensive Medical Practice in Dentistry: A Dual-Perspective Cross-Sectional Analysis of Dentists and Patients in Romania.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The current state of defensive medicine and its association with empathy: a cross-sectional study among graduate students in Guangxi, China.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Article
- On-call abdominal ultrasonography: the rate of negative examinations and incidentalomas in a European tertiary care center.Abdominal radiology (New York) · 2022Article
- A qualitative interview study of Australian physicians on defensive practice and low value care: "it's easier to talk about our fear of lawyers than to talk about our fear of looking bad in front of each other".BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Patient safety assurance in the age of defensive medicine: a review.Patient safety in surgery · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe term defensive medicine, referring to actions motivated primarily by litigious concerns, originates from the USA and has been used in medical research literature since the late 1960s. Differences in medical legal systems between the US and most European countries with no tort legislation raise the question whether the US definition of defensive medicine holds true in Europe.
aimTo present the protocol of a systematic review investigating variations in definitions and understandings of the term 'defensive medicine' in European research articles. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: In concordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, a systematic review of all medical research literature that investigate defensive medicine will be performed by two independent reviewers. The databases PubMed, Embase and Cochrane will be systematically searched on the basis of predetermined criteria. Data from all included European studies will systematically be extracted including the studies' definitions and understandings of defensive medicine, especially the motives for doing medical actions that the study regards as 'defensive'. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: No ethics clearance is required as no primary data will be collected. The results of the systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed, international journal. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: This review has been submitted to International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) and is awaiting registration.
Indexed as
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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.