The quaternary prevention, concept coined by the Belgian

general practitioner A general practitioner (GP) is a doctor who is a Consultant (medicine), consultant in general practice. GPs have distinct expertise and experience in providing whole person medical care, whilst managing the complexity, uncertainty and risk ass ...

Marc Jamoulle, are the actions taken to identify a

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by Health professional, healthcare professionals. The patient is most often Disease, ill or Major trauma, injured and in need of therapy, treatment by a physician, nurse, op ...

at risk of overmedicalisation, to protect them from new medical invasion, and to suggest interventions which are ethically acceptable. Quaternary prevention is the set of health activities to mitigate or avoid the consequences of unnecessary or excessive intervention of the

health system A health system, health care system or healthcare system is an organization of people, institutions, and resources that delivers health care services to meet the health needs of target populations. There is a wide variety of health systems aroun ...

.Gervás J. La prevención cuaternaria. OMC. 2004;(95):8.

Explanation of term

Marc Jamoulle divided medical situations into four quadrants based on if the patient was experiencing illness (i.e. if the patient experienced subjective poor health) and if the doctor had identified disease (constructed based on diagnostic criteria), with a different type of prevention happening in each: #

Primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

prevention when both illness and disease are absent # Secondary prevention when illness is absent but disease is present #

Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

prevention when both illness and disease are present # Quaternary prevention when the patient is experiencing illness but there is no identified disease Jamoulle noted that when the patient was experiencing illness but no specific disease had been identified that patient was particularly vulnerable to their condition being made worse by invasive or harmful diagnostic medical intervention. This original explanation is more limited than the more general term listed in the Wonca International Dictionary for General/Family Practice, "action taken to identify patient at risk of overmedicalisation, to protect him from new medical invasion, and to suggest to him interventions, which are ethically acceptable".

Explanation of term

See also

References

Further reading