Table 1.
Characteristics of the included studies and frequencies of occurrence of defensive medicine
| Authors/Publication year | Country | Study population | Study design | Sampling methods | Sample size (n) | Occurrence (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passmore et al./2002 [27] | England | Psychiatrists | Postal survey | Census | 154 | 75.0 |
| Studdert et al./2005 [14] | USA | Emergency medicine, General surgery, Orthopedic surgery, Neurosurgery, Obstetrics/ Gynecology, and Radiology | Mail survey | Randomly | 824 | 93.0 |
| Hiyama et al./2006 [18] | Japan | Gastroenterologists | Survey | Randomly | 131 | 98.0 |
| Asher et al./ 2012 [28] | Israel | Internal medicine, Pediatrics, General surgery, Family medicine, Obstetrics/ gynecology, Orthopedic surgery, Cardiology, and Neurosurgery | Survey | Randomly | 889 | 60.0 |
| Nahed et al./2012 [29] | USA | Neurosurgeons | National online survey | NS | 1028 | 36.0–72.0 |
| Elli et al./ 2013 [30] | Italy | Gastroenterologists | Survey | NS | 107 | 94.0 |
| Ortashi et al./2013 [31] | UK | Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics /Gynecology, Pediatrics | Survey | Convenience | 204 | 78.0 |
| Sathiyakumar et al. /2013 [32] | USA | Orthopedic (trauma and non-trauma) | National Survey | Randomly | 1214 | 84.0–86.0 |
| He et al./ 2014 [33] | China | Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics | Survey | Randomly | 504 | 80.6 |
| Moosazadeh et al./ 2014 [17] | Iran | General practitioners | Survey | Census | 423 | 79.2–99.8 |
| Solaroglu et al./2014 [21] | Turkey | Neurosurgeons | Survey | NS | 404 | 72.0 |
| Ramella et al./ 2015 [34] | Italy | Radiation oncology | Survey | NS | 361 | 75.0 |
| Reisch et al./2015 [19] | USA | Breast pathologists | National online survey | NS | 252 | 88.0 |
| Ali et al./2016 [20] | Sudan | Obstetrics/Gynecology | National Survey | NS | 117 | 71.8.0 |
| Panella et al./2016 [35] | Italy | General Surgeons, Anesthesiologists, Internists, Pediatricians, Psychiatrics, Emergency, Radiologists, Cardiologists, Urologists, Pathologists, Neurologists, Rehabilitation Doctors | National online survey | Randomly | 1313 | 59.7 |
| Silberstein et al./2016 [23] | Israel | Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery | Prospective survey | NS | 78 | 51.3 |
| Yan et al./2016 [36] | Canada, South Africa, USA | Neurosurgery | Online survey | NS | 1142 | 64.5–89.1 |
| Din et al./2017 [37] | USA | Neurosurgery | Online survey | NS | 1026 | 84.6–89.2 |
| Panella et al./2017 [12] | Italy | Physicians | National survey | Randomly | 1313 | 59.8 |
| Reuveni et al./2017 [22] | Israel | Psychiatrists | Survey | NS | 213 | 62.1 |
| Yan et al./2017 [38] | Netherlands | Neurosurgeons | National online survey | NS | 45 | 6.7–64.4 |
| Tebano et al./2018 [39] | 74 countries | Infectious diseases and Clinical microbiology doctors | International online survey | NS | 830 | 76.0–85.0 |
| Zhu et al./2018 [15] | China | Obstetrics/Gynecology | National online Survey | NS | 1486 | 62.9 |
| Al-Atram et al./2018 [40] | 9 Middle Eastern countries | Psychiatrists | Survey | NS | 92 | 30.0 |
| Renkema et al./2019 [41] | Netherlands | Anesthesiology, Colon, stomach and liver diseases, Gynecology, Internal medicine, Neurology, and Surgery | Electronic Survey | NS | 214 | 42.0–89.0 |
| Borgan et al./2020 [42] | USA | Internal Medicine Residents | Online survey | Convenience | 49 | 40.0–91.3 |
| Calikoglu et al./2020 [2] | Turkey | Anesthesia, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Ear Nose Throat Physician, General Surgery, Urology, Eye Diseases, Orthopedics, Cardiovascular, Surgery, Neurosurgery, Plastic surgery, Thoracic, and Pediatric | Survey | All practicing physicians | 190 | 94.2 |
USA United States of America, UK United Kingdom, NS Not Stated, UAE Unite Arab Emirates