ArticleAsian bioethics review2020
The Pitfalls of Overtreatment: Why More Care is not Necessarily Beneficial.
Article in Asian bioethics review, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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
23 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Regression of Hard-Won Advances in Socialized Medicine: The Emergence of the Private Sector in Health Care in Serbia.Health and human rights · 2025Article
- Addressing the overuse-underuse paradox in healthcare.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2025Article
- A brief work-oriented intervention targeting musculoskeletal and mental health disorders: Exploring work disability outcomes in a prospective study.Work (Reading, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Factors that influence the implementation of AI-driven lifestyle monitoring in long-term care for older adults.The Gerontologist · 2025Article
- Hospital Rating Organizations' Quality and Patient Safety Scores: Analysis of Result Discrepancies.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Observational
- Impact of Order Restrictions on Hemoglobin A1c Requests at Primary Health Care Centers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2025Article
- Using real world data to bridge the evidence gap left by prostate cancer screening trials.ESMO real world data and digital oncology · 2024Article
- Analysing false-positive errors when Australian radiographers use preliminary image evaluation.Journal of medical radiation sciences · 2024Article
- Stretching oneself too thin and facing ethical challenges: Healthcare professionals' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.Nursing ethics · 2024Article
- TB prevention activities in the WHO European Region.IJTLD open · 2024Article
- Utilization and features of rehabilitation and health services for persons with spinal cord injury.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine · 2024Observational
- Medical Maximizing Preferences and Beliefs About Cancer Among US Adults.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- How to Optimize Deimplementation of Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy?The breast journal · 2024Article
- Comparing Cancer Primary and Secondary Prevention Documentation Between Different Digital Health Approaches in the Emergency Department.Women's health reports (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Epidemiology of Renal Replacement Therapy for Critically Ill Patients across Seven Health Jurisdictions.American journal of nephrology · 2024Article
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment: A Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- The Need for Green and Responsible Medical Informatics and Digital Health: Looking Forward with One Digital Health.Yearbook of medical informatics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Overtreatment refers to interventions that do not benefit the patient, or where the risk of harm from the intervention is likely to outweigh any benefit the patient will receive. It can account for up to 30% of health care costs, and is increasingly recognised as a widespread problem across nations and within clinical and scientific communities. There are a number of inter-related factors that drive overtreatment including the expanding definition of diseases, advertising and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, how doctors are trained and remunerated, demands from patients (and their families) and the fear of complaints leading doctors to practise defensively. This paper discusses a number of ethical and practical issues arising from overtreatment that doctors and patients should be aware of. It also considers the flow-on effects of overtreatment such as the increased cost of care, increase in work load for health professionals, and wastage as resources are diverted from more genuine and pressing needs. In addition, there are references to a number of Medical Council of New Zealand statements about what good medical practice means in an environment of resource limitation. The paper concludes with a few measures that doctors and patients could take to reduce overtreatment but acknowledges that health care is extremely complex so it would be unrealistic to eliminate overtreatment entirely.
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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.