title: [Overmedicalization: When too much medicine harms].
abstract: Overmedicalization refers to non-validated medical practices, with no clear benefits, potentially harmful and therefore unnecessarily costly. Awareness is growing with respect to this serious public health problem. Permanent expansion of diagnostic or therapeutic interventions, disease mongering, inadequate management of diagnostic uncertainty, conflict of interest or lack of commitment by physicians and patients in shared decision making. Overmedicalization is made possible by a lack of training of health professionals and users on medical decision process. Only a multidisciplinary research program, involving medical and non-medical worlds, will allow the implementation of corrective actions.
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé Simone-Veil, université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin, 78180 Montigny-Le-Bretonneux, France; Service de médecine interne, hôpital Ambroise-Paré, Assistance publique-hôpitaux de Paris, 92104 Boulogne-Billancourt cedex, France. Electronic address: thomas.hanslik@aphp.fr.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hanslik
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Descartes, 75006 Paris, France; Hôtel-Dieu, Assistance publique-hôpitaux de Paris, 75004 Paris, France; Campus Biotech, université de Genève, 1202 Genève, Suisse.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Flahault
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007049:Iatrogenic Disease / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D008297:Male; D000069342:Medical Overuse; D008875:Middle Aged; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications
keywords: Adverse effect; Décision médicale; Effet indésirable; Efficacité thérapeutique; Incertitude; Medical decision; Treatment outcome; Uncertainty