Defensive Medicine Practices, Antecedents and Results: Protocol for the Systematic Review

Abstract

In the most general sense, defensive medicine practices are the answer to the concerns that physicians have. Defensive medicine practices can affect physicians, patients and the health system and, as a result, the whole of society, positively or negatively. Therefore, it is important to conduct detailed studies on defensive medicine practices. This study was carried out to conduct a systematic review of the pre-existing studies on defensive medicine practices. Information on the definition of defensive medicine practices, the antecedents of defensive medicine practices and the results of defensive medicine practices was sought. This also constituted the inclusion criteria. The study was carried out following the PRISMA systematic review protocol. In the study, Google Scholar was used as a scanning engine to scan all literature. Articles written in either Turkish or English were included in this study. Relevant information was compiled from the articles included in the study. The information obtained was coded into the NVivo programme, and content analysis was done. As a result, information on the definition of defensive medicine practices, the antecedents of defensive medicine practices and the results of defensive medicine practices was compiled and presented comprehensively. It is thought that this study will compile a new body of literature on defensive medicine practices and integrate the information related to defensive medicine practices, in addition to its precursors and results, to see how the information differs across the studies and contributes to the literature.