Assessment of the Prevalence of Practicing Defensive Medicine among Physicians at Ain-Shams University Hospitals

Abstract

efensive medicine is defined as ordering extra treatments, tests, procedures, visits, and /or referrals or avoidance of high-risk patients or procedures primarily to protect the physician from exposure to lawsuits rather than to alter the patient’s diagnosis or treatment significantly. Defensive medicine takes two forms: Assurance behavior (sometimes called “positive” defensive medicine and Avoidance behavior (sometimes called “negative” defensive medicine) It was reported in other countries, but its prevalence in Egypt still unclear. The present study aims to assess: knowledge, attitude, and practice of defensive medicine among a sample of Egyptian doctors, the association between exposure to medical error and the change in physicians' behavior, and the impact of the climate of legal threat and the medical profession in Egypt on physicians' behavior. A cross-sectional quantitative study was done using a 23 point detailed self-administered questionnaire to measure ( in terms of knowledge, attitude, and prevalence) the extent and percentage of defensive medicine practice among physicians from five different specialties and to determine the impact of any experience of malpractice litigation and the climate of legal threat on physicians' behavior.