Teenagers’ and parental attitudes towards the use of placebo pills

The placebo response a significant therapeutic improvement after a placebo intervention — can be high in children. The question arises of how optimal advantages of placebo treatment in pediatric clinical care be achieved. In this era of shared-decision making, it is important to be aware of patients’ and parental attitudes. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to assess teenagers’ and parental views on the use of placebo pills in pediatric clinical care. All patients (aged 12–18 years) and parents of children (aged 0–18 years), visiting the pediatric outpatient clinic between March 2020 through December 2020, were invited to participate in this study multicenter survey study. Of 1644 distributed questionnaires: 200/478 (47%) teenagers and 456/1166 (45%) parents filled out the complete survey. More parents were positive towards prescribing placebo medication than teenagers (80% vs. 71%, p = .019), especially when the clinician disclosed the use of a placebo to parents and teenagers, respectively (76% vs. 55%, p = .019). Increasing age of teenagers was positively associated with the willingness for placebo interventions (OR 0.803, 95%CI 0.659–0.979), as was a higher level of parental education (OR 0.706, 95%CI 0.526–0.949). Conclusion: This study emphasizes the willingness of teenagers and parents to receive placebo medication. Placebo medication becoming more acceptable and integrated into daily care may contribute to a decrease in medication use.