@article{Bolcato_Russo_Sanavio_Rodriguez_Aprile_2020, title={The clinical legal medicine: a need for quality of care and patient’s safety. A single center five-year experience}, volume={91}, url={https://mattioli1885journals.com/index.php/actabiomedica/article/view/9373}, DOI={10.23750/abm.v91i4.9373}, abstractNote={<p><strong>Introduction</strong>. Clinical legal medicine is a branch of legal medicine that takes place in a clinical setting approaching the patient’s bedside and using a particular attention not only for conceptual or normative references but also for every possible medical and social aspect.</p> <p><strong>Material and methods</strong>. The requests of medico-legal opinions received by the Department of Legal Medicine of a large university hospital were retrospectively collected over a 5-years period. The analysis focused on the recurrence rate of the requests and the most common medico-legal issues to be solved in a clinical context, differentiating between adult and minor patients.</p> <p><strong>Results</strong>. The collected medico-legal advices amounted to 448. The most clearly involved clinical area was Medicine (54%) followed by Gynecology and Obstetrics (15.6%), Pediatrics and Surgery (10.7%). The requests concerning patient’s self-determination in therapeutics choices, including refusal of proposed treatments, covered almost one-half of total casuistry. The designation of support administrator represented also a relevant issue (20.5%). In case of minors, the queries related to reporting crimes were three times higher than in adults, while the appointment of a support administrator was never requested.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion</strong>. Clinical legal medicine, through medico-legal advices, plays a primary role in contributing to the safeguarding of health and to the decision-making process of clinicians.</p>}, number={4}, journal={Acta Biomedica Atenei Parmensis}, author={Bolcato, Matteo and Russo, Marianna and Sanavio, Matteo and Rodriguez, Daniele and Aprile, Anna}, year={2020}, month={Apr.}, pages={e2020090} }