Quaternary prevention: an evidence-based concept aiming to protect patients from medical harm

In their recent article ‘Quaternary prevention: a balanced approach to demedicalisation’,¹ Norman and Tesser (N&T) presented Kuehlein et al’s original definition of quaternary prevention as: ‘An action taken to identify a patient at risk of over-medicalization, to protect him from new medical invasion, and to suggest to him interventions which are ethically acceptable.’ ²

They concluded that this definition is more comprehensive than a new definition recently proposed by Brodersen et al: ‘Action taken to protect individuals (persons/patients) from medical interventions that are likely to cause more harm than good.’ ³

Here we elaborate further on this new definition that we strongly support and have already put into a general practice setting.⁴

First of all, we agree that quaternary prevention needs to be globally disseminated and that further research may contribute to such dissemination. The two aforementioned definitions give different perspectives on …