ReviewCurrent neurology and neuroscience reports2012
Nocebo in headaches: implications for clinical practice and trial design.
Review in Current neurology and neuroscience reports, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Placebo and nocebo phenomena in anti- CGRP monoclonal antibody trials for migraine prevention: a meta-analysis.Journal of neurology · 2020Pooled it
- Nocebo in Biosimilars and Generics in Neurology: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2019Pooled it
- Incidence of Placebo Adverse Events in Randomized Clinical Trials of Targeted and Immunotherapy Cancer Drugs in the Adjuvant Setting: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA network open · 2018Pooled it
- Open-Label Placebos as Adjunct for the Preventive Treatment of Migraine: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Learning mechanisms in nocebo hyperalgesia: the role of conditioning and extinction processes.Pain · 2020Trial
- Learning to experience side effects after antidepressant intake - Results from a randomized, controlled, double-blind study.Psychopharmacology · 2017Trial
- Response rates, survival status and adverse events of placebo in randomized control trials for hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis.World journal of hepatology · 2025Article
- Translating knowledge on placebo and nocebo effects into clinical practice.Pain reports · 2024Article
- The Nocebo Effect.Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology · 2024Review
- Patient Perspectives and Experiences of Preventive Treatments and Self-Injectable Devices for Migraine: A Focus Group Study.The patient · 2022Article
- European headache federation consensus on the definition of resistant and refractory migraine : Developed with the endorsement of the European Migraine & Headache Alliance (EMHA).The journal of headache and pain · 2020Article
- The role of the Nocebo effect in the use of biosimilars in routine rheumatology clinical practice.Mediterranean journal of rheumatology · 2019Review
- Nocebos in rheumatology: emerging concepts and their implications for clinical practice.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2018Review
- Pain Modulation: From Conditioned Pain Modulation to Placebo and Nocebo Effects in Experimental and Clinical Pain.International review of neurobiology · 2018Review
- New players in the preventive treatment of migraine.BMC medicine · 2015Review
- Q-No: a questionnaire to predict nocebo in outpatients seeking neurological consultation.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2015Article
- Refractory chronic cluster headache: a consensus statement on clinical definition from the European Headache Federation.The journal of headache and pain · 2014Article
- Pain and suicidality: insights from reward and addiction neuroscience.Progress in neurobiology · 2013Review
- Nocebo phenomena in medicine: their relevance in everyday clinical practice.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2012Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The term nocebo refers to a harmful, unpleasant or undesirable adverse event a subject manifests after receiving an inert dummy drug or placebo. This reaction is originating by the patients fear and negative expectation that medical treatment most likely will produce unfavorable consequences instead of healing. Like placebo, nocebo shares key functions in pain conditions. Two recent systemic meta-analyses searched for nocebo in trials for prevention of migraine and tension-type headache and revealed that 1 out of 20 patients treated with placebo withdraw treatment due to adverse effects. Additionally, adverse events in placebo groups mirrored the adverse events expected of the active medication studied, confirming that pretrial suggestions induce the adverse events in placebo-treated patients. Therefore, nocebo reduces the study population by 10% and limits the treatment outcomes in randomized controlled trials for primary headaches. The potential implications of this substantial nocebo effect for both trial designing and clinical practice are discussed in this article.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.