Abstract:

Defensive medicine, which has existed since the past but has come into prominence in recent years, is an important issue for health services. Defensive medicine can be defined as physicians requests for analysis, test and diagnostic methods that the patient does not need in order to defend themselves against medical malpractise lawsuits. It is thought that it is important to examine the defensive medicine attitudes of physicians as they affect both the use of scarce resources in health services and the quality of health care services. With this study, it is aimed to examine the defensive medicine attitudes of physicians, who are the most important parts of health care providers. Quantitative research method was used in this study and the data were obtained by survey method. 207 physicians working in a university hospital participated in the study. The defensive medicine behavior mean of the participants was found to be x̄=3.27. Result of the analyzes showed that the physicians participating in the research have an above-average attitude towards both positive and negative defensive medicine practices. It was determined that the male physicians participating in the study are practicing negative defensive medical practices more than the female physicians. It was observed that assistant physicians act more defensively than specialists, physicians who work for 5-10 years behave more defensive compared to those who work for 11 years or more. The results indicates that physicians had heard of the concept of defensive medicine before, but they did not have enough knowledge about it. It is believed that regular trainings on medical errors and defensive medicine, as well as physicians who have previously been through a legal process, sharing their experiences with physicians who are at the beginning of the profession, can be a guide.

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