Weird question. Do you know what would happen if you gave two groups a painkiller, told one group that it should help and told the other that it shouldn’t work (or that it was a placebo)? I’m curious if the drug would still work as well if the patient was told it isn’t supposed to.
I’d google it, but I have no idea what keywords to use lol.
Yep, look up the nocebo effect. It’s exactly that.
It’s not so common being an issue like the example describes irl for medication as generally people who don’t think something will work simply don’t take it, so it becomes more a compliance issue, but certainly is a concern for eg physical treatments - patients are more likely to report pain during a procedure if they go into it expecting it to be painful. Also mentioning side effects of medication makes patients more likely to experience them.
Weird question. Do you know what would happen if you gave two groups a painkiller, told one group that it should help and told the other that it shouldn’t work (or that it was a placebo)? I’m curious if the drug would still work as well if the patient was told it isn’t supposed to.
I’d google it, but I have no idea what keywords to use lol.
Yep, look up the nocebo effect. It’s exactly that.
It’s not so common being an issue like the example describes irl for medication as generally people who don’t think something will work simply don’t take it, so it becomes more a compliance issue, but certainly is a concern for eg physical treatments - patients are more likely to report pain during a procedure if they go into it expecting it to be painful. Also mentioning side effects of medication makes patients more likely to experience them.
That’s super interesting, thank you!