Objective To investigate the prevalence of defensive medicine among physicians in public hospitals in China and the impact of physicians'adverse medical events experiences.Methods Data were collected from 15 secondary or tertiary public hospitals in the eight cities in 2019 using convenience sampling method.Descriptive and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to investigate physicians'characteristics and explore the associa-tions between characteristics,adverse medical events experiences and the frequencies of defensive medicine.Re-sults Physicians who are male(β2=-0.59),low income(β2=-1.47)and work in acute care units(β1=3.84,β2=1.84),pediatrics(β1=3.01,β2=2.16)and surgery(β1=2.64,β2=1.67)were more likely to engage in defensive medical behavior(P＜0.05).Physicians who experienced adverse medical events practiced more frequent defensive medicine.Conclusion Adverse medical events experiences significantly increase physicians'defensive medicine prac-tice.Joint efforts should be made to improve physician-patint relationship and focus on prevention at source and im-proving dispute resolution mechanisms.