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A considerable amount of spending in health care is deemed wasteful. Overdiagnosis, i.e. the labelling of a person with a diagnosis that lacks net benefit, is an entity within the overarching concept of »too much medicine«. Overdiagnosis includes overdetection and overdefinition. Disease mongering is a type of overdefinition with economic drivers. Overtesting and overtreatment are other aspects of »too much medicine«, but are not overdiagnosis per se. Medical research tends to focus on benefits of diagnostics and therapy, whereas overdiagnosis and other harms receive less attention, leading to overestimation of benefits. The international network Choosing Wisely has been successful in changing the diagnostic mindset in several countries and a Swedish campaign is under way, yielding new possibilities to counteract »too much medicine« and the specific problem of overdiagnosis., De flesta förstår att överbehandling med läkemedel är skadligt och kostsamt. Det är inte lika självklart att även utredningar, undersökningar och diagnos sät tning kan ge negativa konsekvenser. För att finna lösningar på de omfattande problemen med överanvändning av medicinska resurser och överdiagnostik, behövs ökad kunskap om vad det är och vad det beror på [1, 2]. Målet med denna artikel är att ge en introduktion till begreppet överdiagnostik och klargöra hur det förhåller sig till andra begrepp inom överanvändning av medicins ka resurser, i syfte att underlätta en konstruktiv diskussion om lämpliga åtgärder.

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment receive increasing attention. More than 20 percent of health expenditure is without patient benefit, so-called low-value care. Several national and international initiatives have been launched to minimize low-value care. Arguably, the most widely spread initiative is Choosing Wisely. First launched by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 2012, this campaign has spread to more than 20 countries. The Swedish Society of Medicine has identified low-value care as a significant problem in Swedish health care and has established a working group to investigate if and how a campaign based on Choosing Wisely would be feasible in Sweden. Here, the working group reports on the history of Choosing Wisely, identifies potential challenges for deimplementation generally and in the Swedish context specifically., Överdiagnostik och överbehandling har uppmärksammats allt mer både i Sverige och internationellt [1], framför allt på grund av stigande vårdkostnader [2]. Noggranna beräkningar från USA visar att 20‒30 procent av sjukvårdsutgifterna går till åtgärder utan patientnytta [3]. Liknande resultat rapporteras från and­ra utvecklade länder [4], och även i Sverige går sjukvårdsutgifter till åtgärder som saknar patientnytta [2]. Förutom ökande kostnader leder överdiagnostik och överbehandling, så kallad lågvärdevård (low-value care), till undanträngningseffekter och risk för patientskada [5]. Behovet av att minska åtgärder med liten, tveksam eller ingen patientnytta har blivit ännu tydligare under coronapandemin [6]. »Choosing wisely« är en internationell kampanj som syftar till att identifiera åtgärder i sjukvården som saknar patientnytta och underlätta utmönstringen av dem. Kampanjen lanserades av American Board of Internal Medicine 2012 [7] och är i dag spridd till fler än 20 länder [8]. Sverige har ännu inte startat någon formell kampanj, även om Choosing wisely beskrevs i Läkartidningen redan 2013 [9].

Objective To explore how patients with experience of acute coronary heart disease make sense of, and deal with, the fact of being prescribed cardiovascular preventive medication. Design Qualitative interview study. Setting Swedish primary care. Participants Twenty-one participants with experience of being prescribed cardiovascular preventive medication, recruited from a randomised controlled study of problem-based learning for self-care for coronary heart disease. Methods The participants were interviewed individually 6–12 months after their hospitalisation for acute coronary disease. A narrative analysis was conducted of their accounts of being prescribed cardiovascular preventive medication. Results Four themes shape the patients’ experiences: ‘A matter of living’ concerns an awareness of the will to live linked to being prescribed cardiovascular preventive medication regarded in the light of the recent hospitalisation. In ‘Reconciliation of conflicting self-images’, patients dealt with being prescribed preventive medication through work to restore an identity of someone responsible in spite of viewing the taking of medication as questionable. The status of feeling healthy, while being someone in need of medication, also constituted conflicting self-images. Following this, taking medication was framed as necessary, not as an active choice. ‘Being in the hands of expertise’ is about the seeking of an answer from a reliable prescriber to the question: ‘Is this medication really necessary for me?’ Existential labour was done to establish that the practice of taking cardiovascular preventive medication was an inevitable necessity, rather than an active choice. ‘Taking medicines no longer a big deal’ could be the resulting experience of this process. Conclusions Unmet existential needs when being prescribed cardiovascular preventive medication seem to be a component of the burden of treatment. A continuous and trustful relationship with the prescribing doctor may facil

Objective: The aim of the study was to describe and explore patient agency through resistance in decision-making about cardiovascular preventive drugs in primary care. Design: Six general practitioners from the southeast of Sweden audiorecorded 80 consultations. From these, 28 consultations with proposals from GPs for cardiovascular preventive drug treatments were chosen for theme-oriented discourse analysis. Results: The study shows how patients participate in decision-making about cardiovascular preventive drug treatments through resistance in response to treatment proposals. Passive modes of resistance were withheld responses and minimal unmarked acknowledgements. Active modes were to ask questions, contest the address of an inclusive we, present an identity as a non-drugtaker, disclose non-adherence to drug treatments, and to present counterproposals. The active forms were also found in anticipation to treatment proposals from the GPs. Patients and GPs sometimes displayed mutual renouncement of responsibility for decision-making. The decision-making process appeared to expand both beyond a particular phase in the consultations and beyond the single consultation. Conclusions: The recognition of active and passive resistance from patients as one way of exerting agency may prove valuable when working for patient participation in clinical practice, education and research about patient-doctor communication about cardiovascular preventive medication. We propose particular attentiveness to patient agency through anticipatory resistance, patients disclosures of non-adherence and presentations of themselves as non-drugtakers. The expansion of the decision-making process beyond single encounters points to the importance of continuity of care., Funding Agencies|ALF Grants, Region Ostergotland; Research Board of Local Care Eastern Ostergotland; Research and Development Unit of the County Council of Ostergotland; Research Council of South Eastern Sweden (FORSS)

Dagens allmänmedicin påverkas av ett växande managementtänkandetillsammans med fragmenterande ekonomiska incitament.Vårdens kvaliteter evalueras med nya metoder som ”värdebaseradvård” där värde räknas i kronor och ören. Produktion går före etik,och det intersubjektiva mötet mellan patient och läkare håller påatt nedvärderas. Perspektiven från narrativ medicin kan bidra tillatt visa vad som står på spel. Vilken blir annars berättelsen omallmänmedicinen?

Aims. To explore general practitioners' (GPs') descriptions of their thoughts and action when prescribing cardiovascular preventive drugs. Methods. Qualitative content analysis of transcribed group interviews with 14 participants from two primary health care centres in the southeast of Sweden. Results. GPs' prescribing of cardiovascular preventive drugs, from their own descriptions, involved "the patient as calculated" and "the inclination to prescribe," which were negotiated in the interaction with "the patient in front of me." In situations with high cardiovascular risk, the GPs reported a tendency to adopt a directive consultation style. In situations with low cardiovascular risk and great uncertainty about the net benefit of preventive drugs, the GPs described a preference for an informed patient choice. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that GPs mainly involve patients at low and uncertain risk of cardiovascular disease in treatment decisions, whereas patient involvement tends to decrease when GPs judge the cardiovascular risk as high. Our findings may serve as a memento for clinicians, and we suggest them to be considered in training in communication skills.