Can Conscious Guilt Feelings Incite Nocebo Pain?

Pain-related guilt in low back pain.

OBJECTIVES Identifying mechanisms that mediate recovery is imperative to improve outcomes in low back pain (LBP). Qualitative studies suggest that guilt may be such a mechanism, but research on this concept is scarce, and reliable instruments to measure pain-related guilt are not available. METHODS We addressed this gap by developing and testing a Pain-related Guilt Scale (PGS) for people wit...

Fear of pain potentiates nocebo hyperalgesia

Nocebo hyperalgesia has received sparse experimental attention compared to placebo analgesia. The aim of the present study was to investigate if personality traits and fear of pain could predict experimental nocebo hyperalgesia. One hundred and eleven healthy volunteers (76 females) participated in an experimental study in which personality traits and fear of pain were measured prior to inducti...

Pain, placebo, and nocebo: epistemic, ethical, and practical issues.

Nocebo effects in clinical studies: hints for pain therapy

INTRODUCTION Nocebo-induced algesic responses occurring within clinical contexts present a challenge for health care practitioners working in the field of pain medicine. OBJECTIVES Following the recent research on algesic nocebo effects, the scope of this review is to develop ethically acceptable strategies to help avoid, or at least reduce, nocebo responses within clinical settings. METHOD...

Nonconscious activation of placebo and nocebo pain responses.

The dominant theories of human placebo effects rely on a notion that consciously perceptible cues, such as verbal information or distinct stimuli in classical conditioning, provide signals that activate placebo effects. However, growing evidence suggest that behavior can be triggered by stimuli presented outside of conscious awareness. Here, we performed two experiments in which the responses t...