OBJECTIVE This study investigated the impact of the social modeling of side effects following placebo medication ingestion on the nocebo and placebo effect. It also investigated whether medication branding (brand or generic labeling) moderated social modeling effects. METHOD Eighty-two university students took part in the study which was purportedly investigating the impact of fast-acting bet...

Patients taking active medications frequently experience adverse, nonspecific side effects that are not a direct result of the specific pharmacological action of the drug. Although this phenomenon is common, distressing, and costly, it is rarely studied and poorly understood. The nocebo phenomenon, in which placebos produce adverse side effects, offers some insight into nonspecific side effect ...

Common practice during local anesthetic injection is to warn the patient using words such as: "You will feel a big bee sting; this is the worst part." Our hypothesis was that using gentler words for administration of the local anesthetic improves pain perception and patient comfort. One hundred forty healthy women at term gestation requesting neuraxial analgesia were randomized to either a "pla...