The Placebo Effect

The Placebo Effect
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The Placebo Effect
According to Ted Kaptchuk’s video, the placebo effect is a phenomenon where a patient is healed by the power of positive thinking. In this effect, when a patient is suffering from a particular ailment, and a medication that is not a real treatment of the illness is administered, the patient shows positive changes (Kaptchuk, 2015). In such an instance, the healing power is derived from the belief of the patient that the medication prescribed will heal them. That is the placebo effect.
Single-blinded and double-blinded trials are both methods of blinded trials. In blinded experiments, the information about the research is hidden from the participants. This information is protected to eliminate bias in the study. This information can be hidden from the testers, the subjects, or from both.
In a single-blinded experiment, only the subjects are blinded. It is not disclosed whether the specimens are the test group or the control group. The tester is not blinded. Single-blinded experiments are applied in situations where it is risky to blind the experimenter and in cases where the examiner cannot introduce bias in the trial (Brochu et al., 2014).
Double-blinded experiments are an improvement of the single-blinded study. It aims to achieve a higher level of accuracy by eliminating bias. In this kind of research, the information regarding the experiment is withheld from both the tester and the subjects. Both of them don’t know which phenomena are part of the test group and which belongs to the control group.

The fact that even the researcher has no information regarding the experiment reduces bias (Krejcha, 2016). This method of study is applied in investigations where there is a probability of the researcher introducing bias.
Placebos are often applied in blinded trials. They are used as controls. As discussed earlier, patients can improve by having a positive attitude towards the medication they receive. Therefore, when conducting a medical test, for example, when testing the effect of a new medication it is essential to establish whether the effect the medicine has on the subjects originates from the placebo effect or the substances in the drug (The Nuremberg Code, 1949).
In single-blinded experiments, substances that look identical to the real medicine are administered to the subjects. This can be something like sugar pills which do not contain the elements in the drug, but the taste and the appearance are similar (Brannon and Updegraff, 2013). The specimens do not know whether the medicine they are receiving is real or is a mock. The data results are therefore independent of the subject’s expectations. When testing the effects of two or more drugs which treat the same ailments, the single-blinded experiment can be applied. The patient’s belief that one drug works better than the other can create the placebo effect. When doing such an investigation, it would be essential to mask the medication that the patient is receiving (Hussey, 2005).
In double-blinded trials, the placebo effect is applied to blind both the researcher and the subjects. For example, the doctor’s attitude towards a specific medication can affect their opinion which can be passed on the patient. To eliminate this bias, “real” and “fake” medicine is provided. The subjects receiving the fake medication are used as the placebo control group. Neither the doctor nor the patients are made aware who is receiving the placebo medicine. This eliminates the bias which might come from the doctor’s knowledge about the medication’s effectiveness (Gunnell, 2006). The doctor can introduce bias by recommending the drugs that they know are more effective.
In some instances, the researcher might introduce bias into an experiment consciously. For example, in an analysis to determine the effectiveness of different drugs, the manufacturers might compromise the researcher to alter the results in their favor (“WHO | New WHO Publication on Risk Factors for Health,” 2005). In such cases, it is plausible to blind both the tester and the subjects.
References
Brannon, L., Feist, J., & Updegraff, J. A. (2013). Health psychology: An introduction to behavior and health. Cengage Learning.
Brochu, P. M., Pearl, R. L., Puhl, R. M., & Brownell, K. D. (2014). Do media portrayals of obesity influence support for weight-related medical policy?. Health Psychology, 33(2), 197.
Gunnell, D. (2006). A conversation with John Pemberton. Epidemiology, 17(4), 479-482.
Hussey, Genevieve [Reporter]. (2005). “Health lessons learned from 21-year scientific study” [television program transcript]. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Kaptchuk, T. (2015, July 1). TEDMED 2014: Ted Kaptchuk. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbu6DolnUfM.
Krejcha, J. (2016, January 17). What are the Nuremberg Trials? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5zRH_LcWoc.
The Nuremberg Code (1949). “Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10”, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 181-182.
WHO | New WHO publication on risk factors for health. (2005). Who.int. Retrieved 14 January 2018, from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/new/2005/nw04/en/