Placebo Effect - Case Study Example

The placebo effect, on the other hand, refers to the effect not attributable to a real pharmaceutical therapy or drug (Crum & Langer, 2007).  In essence, the placebo effect is attributed to mindless expectations and beliefs.Placebo was traditionally construed to mean a futile drug that clinicians prescribed to patients, not to achieve any therapeutic effect but to please the patients (Kirsch, 2005). However, the original definition of placebo has been updated by modern clinicians based on the recognition of the specific and real effects that are generated by a placebo.

Accordingly, a placebo is now conceptualised as any experience, event or intervention that patients are given to elicit feelings of positive objective or subjective effects (Price, Finniss & Benedetti, 2008). Therefore, placebos are clinical interventions to which patients respond depending on their perceived expectations and beliefs (Geers et al., 2005).The expectations/beliefs of patients regarding clinical interventions can either be positive or negative. While positive expectations/beliefs generate beneficial effects, negative expectations/beliefs generate undesirable side-effects.

Research findings have indicated that patients who expect side effects from administered treatment indeed encounter side effects that are consistent with their expectations (Thompson, Ritenbaugh & Nichter, 2009). The symptoms that emanate from patients’ expectations have been linked to the nocebo effect, whereby the underlying expectations of adverse events lead to their occurrence (Colloca & Miller, 2011). While placebo effects are attributed to positive outcomes, nocebo effects are attributed to negative outcomes (Colloca & Finniss, 2012).

According to Colloca and Finniss, placebo and nocebo effects directly arise from how a patient’s brain, mind and body conceptualises therapeutic or psychosocial environment. Furthermore, both effects are influenced by a several factors, such as past experiences and verbal indicators. For instance, a patient will perceive a certain medication to be ineffective if the physician administering the medicines communicates negative information about the medicine (Hunsley & Westmacott, 2007).