| Title |
How to distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, June 2018
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s11019-018-9850-1 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Emilia Kaczmarek |
| Abstract |
Is medicalization always harmful? When does medicine overstep its proper boundaries? The aim of this article is to outline the pragmatic criteria for distinguishing between medicalization and over-medicalization. The consequences of considering a phenomenon to be a medical problem may take radically different forms depending on whether the problem in question is correctly or incorrectly perceived as a medical issue. Neither indiscriminate acceptance of medicalization of subsequent areas of human existence, nor criticizing new medicalization cases just because they are medicalization can be justified. The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization; (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization. The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 20 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 | 15% |
| Poland | 2 | 10% |
| Canada | 1 | 5% |
| France | 1 | 5% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 5% |
| Japan | 1 | 5% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 5% |
| Greece | 1 | 5% |
| Australia | 1 | 5% |
| Other | 1 | 5% |
| Unknown | 7 | 35% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 16 | 80% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 10% |
| Scientists | 2 | 10% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 143 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 143 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 16 | 11% |
| Other | 12 | 8% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 11 | 8% |
| Student > Master | 11 | 8% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 8 | 6% |
| Other | 21 | 15% |
| Unknown | 64 | 45% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 24 | 17% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 12 | 8% |
| Social Sciences | 9 | 6% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 6 | 4% |
| Psychology | 6 | 4% |
| Other | 12 | 8% |
| Unknown | 74 | 52% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 70. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 March 2024.
All research outputs
#615,611
of 25,508,813 outputs
Outputs from Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
#14
of 622 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#13,339
of 343,002 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
#1
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,508,813 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 622 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
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