Overscreening information

Overscreening, also called unnecessary screening, is the performance of medical screening without a medical indication to do so. Screening is a medical test in a healthy person who is showing no symptoms of a disease and is intended to detect a disease so that a person may prepare to respond to it. Screening is indicated in people who have some threshold risk for getting a disease, but is not indicated in people who are unlikely to develop a disease. Overscreening is a type of unnecessary health care.

Overscreening is problematic because it can lead to risky or harmful additional treatment when a healthy person gets a false positive result for screening which they should not have had. It also causes unnecessary stress for the person receiving the test, and it brings unnecessary financial costs that someone pays.

The general rule is that people should only be screened for a medical condition when there is a reason to believe that they ought to be screened, such a medical guideline recommendation for screening based on evidence from a person's medical history or physical examination.

Controversy and debate arise when new medical guidelines change screening recommendations.