Introduction

Abstract

Clinical Inertia is when a physician does not begin or intensify a treatment when this is deemed necessary according to current clinical practice guidelines. The term was coined in 2001 by Phillips et al. in an article appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Initially described in diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, the concept spread to numerous chronic diseases. The purpose of this book is to offer, for the first time in English, a review of the data from the literature in this domain and to propose an explanation of this phenomenon which represents a major public health problem. This explanation uses a critical analysis first of the very nature of Evidence-Based Medicine from which guidelines stem and second of the psychological processes which preside over medical decisions, which are described here under the name of “medical reason” and of which this book proposes a “critique”.