Health/ Disease Blog Entry Seven
Azrealle McClain
Sociology 202-01
October 14th 2009
1:48pm
Summary:
You have heard of the elusive placebo effect but have you heard of the nocebo effect? The Nocebo effect is when you get a negative placebo effect. A nocebo response occurs when the suggestion of a negative effect of an intervention leads to an actual negative outcome. Words carry a lot of power within medicine whether negative or positive. When patients are advised that they will have negative side effects such as excruciating pain, the patients reported having more pain then patients who weren’t told their “inevitable” fate. In a paper published in the journal Pain, researchers found that clinical-trial participants have reported a wide variety of nocebo-fueled medical complaints. What's more, these nocebo complaints aren't random; they tend to be specific to the type of drug that patients believe they may be taking
Reactions:
I have heard a lot about the placebo effect whether it was in Psychology class or on television but I have never heard about the nocebo effect. Who knew the power of influence was so strong. The article stated that patients have suffered from things such as burning sensations outside the stomach, sleepiness, fatigue, vomiting, weakness, taste disturbances, tinnitus and even upper-respiratory-tract infection. Since patients could be highly influence by the word of the doctor one would suggest that double blind studies are a high necessity. One would also allude to not telling the patient what side effects to expect because it could bias the results. That would be great if it didn’t violate the law. Any person who commits to a trial drug treatment has to be informed about all possible outcomes from the drug. This means that total bias will never be expunged.
Web Link: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1929869,00.html
No comments:
Post a Comment