Department of Public Health, Research Unit of General Practice, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Department of Public Health, Research Unit of General Practice, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
BMJ Open. 2020 Feb 28;10(2):e034300. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034300.
The 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.
To present the protocol of a systematic review investigating variations in definitions and understandings of the term 'defensive medicine' in European research articles.
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'.
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.
This review has been submitted to International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) and is awaiting registration.
“防御性医疗”一词指的是主要出于诉讼担忧而采取的行动，起源于美国，并自 20 世纪 60 年代末以来一直在医学研究文献中使用。美国和大多数没有侵权立法的欧洲国家的医疗法律制度存在差异，这引发了一个问题，即美国对防御性医疗的定义是否适用于欧洲。
介绍一项系统评价研究的方案，该研究旨在调查欧洲研究文章中“防御性医疗”一词的定义和理解差异。
根据系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目的规定，将由两名独立审查员对所有调查防御性医疗的医学研究文献进行系统评价。将根据预定标准对 PubMed、Embase 和 Cochrane 数据库进行系统搜索。将系统地从所有纳入的欧洲研究中提取数据，包括研究对防御性医疗的定义和理解，特别是对被研究视为“防御性”的医疗行为的动机。
由于不会收集原始数据，因此不需要伦理批准。系统评价的结果将发表在同行评议的国际期刊上。
该综述已提交给国际前瞻性系统评价注册库（PROSPERO），正在等待注册。
