Does patient behaviour drive physicians to practice defensive medicine? Evidence from a video experiment.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

By manipulating patients' critical attitude in a video experiment, we examined whether physicians are more intended to perform defensive acts because of a higher perceived liability risk in Belgium.

Methods

We assigned 85 practicing gynaecologists/obstetricians and orthopaedists randomly to four hypothetical video consultations, in which the patients show either a critical attitude (i.e., getting ahead of the facts, showing distrust) or a non-critical attitude (i.e., displaying more neutral questions and expressions). We asked the physicians about the care they would administer in the presented cases and the expected likelihood that the patient would sue the physician in case of a medical incident.

Results

By manipulating patients' verbal critical attitude (

SUBMITTER: Daniels L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10515032 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature