ArticleHealth psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association2019
The role of patient beliefs in open-label placebo effects.
Article in Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Open label placebo for chronic low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Pain management · 2025Pooled it
- The role of expectations and tailored feedback on the open-label Placebo effect.Journal of health psychology · 2026Trial
- Open-label placebos reduce hair cortisol concentrations and psychological distress - a randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Experimental Approach to Inducing Anti-Histaminergic Placebo Effects: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Healthy Volunteers.Neuroimmunomodulation · 2026Trial
- Roles of administration route, expectation, and belief in placebos in a randomized controlled trial with open-label placebos.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Open-label placebos reduce weight in obesity: a randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- Open-label placebos enhance test performance and reduce anxiety in learner drivers: a randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- A randomized controlled trial of effects of open-label placebo compared to double-blind placebo and treatment-as-usual on symptoms of allergic rhinitis.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Trial
- White patients' physical responses to healthcare treatments are influenced by provider race and gender.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Trial
- Lay perspectives of the open-label placebo rationale: a qualitative study of participants in an experimental trial.BMJ open · 2021Trial
- Placebos without deception reduce self-report and neural measures of emotional distress.Nature communications · 2020Trial
- Effects of prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on open-label placebo responses.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- An update on non-pharmacological interventions for pain relief.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Review
- Talking placebo: a qualitative study of patients' attitudes toward open-label placebo implementation into clinical practice.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Neutral effect of Zishen Yutai Pill on frozen-thawed embryo transfer: a propensity score matching study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- Boosting open-label placebo effects in acute induced pain in healthy adults (BOLPAP-study): study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Physical healing as a function of perceived time.Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveRecent research on open-label placebos, or placebos administered without deception or concealment, suggests that they can be effective in a variety of conditions. The current research sought to unpack the mechanisms underlying the treatment efficacy of open-label placebos.
methodA health care provider induced an allergic reaction in 148 participants via a histamine skin prick test. Participants were then exposed to 1 of 4 conditions additively leveraging various mechanisms of open-label placebo treatments: a supportive patient-provider relationship, a medical ritual, positive expectations, and a rationale about the power of placebos.
resultsThere were no main effects of condition on allergic responses. However, participant beliefs about placebos moderated the effect of open-label placebo treatment condition on physiological allergic reactions: the condition including all 4 components of open-label placebos (a supportive patient-provider relationship, a medical ritual, positive expectations, and a rationale about the power of placebos) significantly reduced physiological allergic reaction among participants with a strong belief in placebos compared with participants in the control group.
conclusionParticipants' beliefs about placebos interact with information from the provider to reduce physiological allergic reactions in response to an open-label placebo treatment. This study underscores the importance of measuring and understanding how participants' beliefs influence outcomes of treatment, and furthers our understanding of when and how open-label placebo treatments work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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.