New study finds placebo effects can be 'socially transmitted' from doctors to patients

[Judi Lynn]

BY ERIC W. DOLAN FEBRUARY 22, 2020

Subjective experiences of pain can be influenced by a healthcare providers’ expectations of treatment success, according to research published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. The findings indicate that placebo effects can be socially transmitted during interactions between doctors and patients. The study also suggests there is a causal link between providers’ expectations and patients’ treatment outcomes.

“I originally trained as a clinical psychologist and have had a longstanding interest in how therapy works — why do patients actually get better? There has been growing interest in the role of mechanisms of psychotherapy that are common across therapies, often referred to as common factors, in contrast to focusing on the specific factors of a particular brand of therapy,” said study author Luke J. Chang, an assistant professor and director of the Computational Social Affective Neuroscience Laboratory (Cosan Lab) at Dartmouth College.

“Common factors include things like expectations and the therapeutic alliance between the doctor and patient, but have been difficult to systematically study. While it has been known for many years that doctors’ expectations likely influence patient outcomes, the magnitude of this effect has never really been investigated.

Double-blind trials, in which neither participants nor experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment, have become the gold standard for research.

More:
https://www.psypost.org/2020/02/new-study-finds-placebo-effects-can-be-socially-transmitted-from-doctors-to-patients-55767