How prevalent is the defensive medicine practice among the Egyptian

Document Type : Original Article

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1 forensic medicine and clinical toxicology kasr alainy cairo university

2 Forensic medicine and Clinical toxicology, Faculty of medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

Abstract

Background:Recently, there has been a remarkable increase in manhandling to physicians and vandalism in hospitals by patients and their relatives; moreover. There is continuous increase in the medical malpractice allegation. This high sense of insecurity among physicians caused them to practice defensive medicine, which could be positive or negative. Defensive medicine practicing has harmful effects on both the patients and the resources.Aim:This work was done to assess the prevalence of defensive medicine practicing among KasrAlainy hospital residents.Methods:A questionnaire which includes ten ‘yes or no’questionswas circulated manuallyamong the residents, where the number of “yes” answers in the questionnaire is considered directly proportional to the sense of insecurity among the responders and more than 4 'yes' answers was considered sense of insecurity.Results: 88.9% responders had more than 4 yes answers in the questionnaire and the median number of yes answer was 7. There was a significant difference regarding the specialty where surgical specialties had higher score than non-surgical specialties. Conclusion:Behaviors indicating defensive medicine practice and sense of insecurity showed high prevalence among the studied sample of Egyptian residents.

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The Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences and Applied Toxicology
Volume 21, Issue 4
December 2021
Pages 57-64

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