Can placebo pills improve well-being even when you know you're taking a placebo?

Open-label placebo administration and well-being in healthy participants

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12617000253303

Enrollment

Registered

2017-02-20

Start date

2017-03-07

Completion date

2017-03-29

Last updated

2017-07-17

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

This study will investigate the role of dose in open-label placebo administration. Recent studies have found that open-label placebo treatments are effective in improving symptoms of IBS, depression, ADHD, and low-back and migraine pain. These findings suggest the possibility of generating a placebo effect without deception. Participants will be recruited to take part in a study investigating the effect of open-label placebo administration on well-being and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no-treatment control, low dose (1 pill per day), or high dose (4 pills per day) placebo administration.

Interventions

Open-label placebo administration (1 placebo pill per day versus 4 placebo pills per day) for 5 days compared to a no treatment control condition. Adherence will be assessed via self-report at follow-up after completion of the course of placebo pills (day 6).

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Treatment

Masking

Open (masking not used)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

Participants will be healthy undergraduate students

Exclusion criteria

Lactose intolerance

Outcome results