overdiagnosis
English
Etymology
over- + diagnosis
Noun
overdiagnosis (uncountable)
- (medicine) To diagnose something too frequently, or based on insufficient evidence, or without benefit to the patient.
- 2007 January 2, H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz And Steven Woloshin, “What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses”, in New York Times:
- While failing to make a diagnosis can result in lawsuits, there are no corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis.
- 2019 August 1, Wendy A. Rogers And Yishai Mintzker, “Getting clearer on overdiagnosis”, in Journal of evaluation in clinical practice:
- Overdiagnosis refers to diagnosis that does not benefit patients because the diagnosed condition is not a harmful disease in those individuals.
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Related terms
- overdiagnose
- underdiagnosis