title: "Iatrogenicity cascade": doing harm by treating harm?
abstract: An electronic survey on substance-induced epileptic crisis was conducted in order to investigate whether doctors, who recognise their own prescription errors, increase their therapeutic aggressiveness, resulting in a so-called "iatrogenicity cascade". Two pairs of clinical vignettes were constructed, in which a patient suffers from iatrogenic (original version) or non-iatrogenic (control version) epileptic crisis. Vignettes were randomised and sent to doctors at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, at an interval of 3 weeks. The results of the present survey in the surveyed population of doctors suggest that inappropriate prescription does not increase therapeutic aggressiveness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. claudia.c.wagner@meduniwien.ac.at
authors.forename: Claudia Christina
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.forename: Jerome
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Biollaz
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zeitlinger
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Buclin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000188:drug therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007049:Iatrogenic Disease; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors; D008511:Medicine; D008875:Middle Aged; D010820:Physicians; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013038:Specialization; D013557:Switzerland