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Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?

OBJECTIVES: Despite the increasing knowledge about placebo effects and their beneficial impact on treatment outcomes, strategies that explicitly employ these mechanisms remain scarce. To benefit from placebo effects, it is important to gain better understanding in how individuals want to be informed...

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Autores principales: Smits, Rosanne M., Veldhuijzen, Dieuwke S., Olde Hartman, Tim, Peerdeman, Kaya J., Van Vliet, Liesbeth M., Van Middendorp, Henriët, Rippe, Ralph C. A., Wulffraat, Nico M., Evers, Andrea W. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7951811/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33705397
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247103
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author Smits, Rosanne M.
Veldhuijzen, Dieuwke S.
Olde Hartman, Tim
Peerdeman, Kaya J.
Van Vliet, Liesbeth M.
Van Middendorp, Henriët
Rippe, Ralph C. A.
Wulffraat, Nico M.
Evers, Andrea W. M.
author_facet Smits, Rosanne M.
Veldhuijzen, Dieuwke S.
Olde Hartman, Tim
Peerdeman, Kaya J.
Van Vliet, Liesbeth M.
Van Middendorp, Henriët
Rippe, Ralph C. A.
Wulffraat, Nico M.
Evers, Andrea W. M.
author_sort Smits, Rosanne M.
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Despite the increasing knowledge about placebo effects and their beneficial impact on treatment outcomes, strategies that explicitly employ these mechanisms remain scarce. To benefit from placebo effects, it is important to gain better understanding in how individuals want to be informed about placebo effects (for example about the underlying mechanisms that steer placebo effects). The main aim of this study was to investigate placebo information strategies in a general population sample by assessing current placebo knowledge, preferences for different placebo explanations (built around well-known mechanisms involved in placebo effects), and attitudes and acceptability towards the use of placebo effects in treatment. DESIGN: Online survey. SETTING: Leiden, The Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: 444 participants (377 completers), aged 16–78 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Current placebo knowledge, placebo explanation preferences, and placebo attitudes and acceptability. RESULTS: Participants scored high on current placebo knowledge (correct answers: M = 81.15%, SD = 12.75). Comparisons of 8 different placebo explanations revealed that participants preferred explanations based on brain mechanisms and positive expectations more than all other explanations (F(7, 368) = 3.618, p = .001). Furthermore, attitudes and acceptability for placebos in treatment varied for the type of the condition (i.e. more acceptant for psychological complaints) and participants indicated that physicians do not always have to be honest while making use of placebo effects for therapeutic benefit. CONCLUSION: Our results brought forth new evidence in placebo information strategies, and indicated that explanations based on brain mechanisms and positive expectations were most preferred. These results can be insightful to construct placebo information strategies for both clinical context and research practices.
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spelling pubmed-79518112021-03-22 Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell? Smits, Rosanne M. Veldhuijzen, Dieuwke S. Olde Hartman, Tim Peerdeman, Kaya J. Van Vliet, Liesbeth M. Van Middendorp, Henriët Rippe, Ralph C. A. Wulffraat, Nico M. Evers, Andrea W. M. PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVES: Despite the increasing knowledge about placebo effects and their beneficial impact on treatment outcomes, strategies that explicitly employ these mechanisms remain scarce. To benefit from placebo effects, it is important to gain better understanding in how individuals want to be informed about placebo effects (for example about the underlying mechanisms that steer placebo effects). The main aim of this study was to investigate placebo information strategies in a general population sample by assessing current placebo knowledge, preferences for different placebo explanations (built around well-known mechanisms involved in placebo effects), and attitudes and acceptability towards the use of placebo effects in treatment. DESIGN: Online survey. SETTING: Leiden, The Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: 444 participants (377 completers), aged 16–78 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Current placebo knowledge, placebo explanation preferences, and placebo attitudes and acceptability. RESULTS: Participants scored high on current placebo knowledge (correct answers: M = 81.15%, SD = 12.75). Comparisons of 8 different placebo explanations revealed that participants preferred explanations based on brain mechanisms and positive expectations more than all other explanations (F(7, 368) = 3.618, p = .001). Furthermore, attitudes and acceptability for placebos in treatment varied for the type of the condition (i.e. more acceptant for psychological complaints) and participants indicated that physicians do not always have to be honest while making use of placebo effects for therapeutic benefit. CONCLUSION: Our results brought forth new evidence in placebo information strategies, and indicated that explanations based on brain mechanisms and positive expectations were most preferred. These results can be insightful to construct placebo information strategies for both clinical context and research practices. Public Library of Science 2021-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7951811/ /pubmed/33705397 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247103 Text en © 2021 Smits et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Smits, Rosanne M.
Veldhuijzen, Dieuwke S.
Olde Hartman, Tim
Peerdeman, Kaya J.
Van Vliet, Liesbeth M.
Van Middendorp, Henriët
Rippe, Ralph C. A.
Wulffraat, Nico M.
Evers, Andrea W. M.
Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title_full Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title_fullStr Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title_full_unstemmed Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title_short Explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: Does ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?
title_sort explaining placebo effects in an online survey study: does ‘pavlov’ ring a bell?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7951811/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33705397
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247103
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