Can the Open Label Placebo Rationale Be Optimized?

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

5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

1. A systematic qualitative review of ethical issues in open label placebo in published research.Scientific reports · 2025
   Pooled it
2. Methodological considerations for designing and conducting open-label placebo trials.Pain · 2026
   Review
3. Open-label placebos for low back pain: unresolved challenges and next steps.Pain management · 2025
   Article
4. Dismantling open-label placebos and their rationales: A remote 4-arm randomized controlled trial protocol.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025
   Article
5. Preoperative Anxiolysis and Treatment Expectation (PATE Trial): open-label placebo treatment to reduce preoperative anxiety in female patients undergoing gynecological laparoscopic surgery - study protocol for a bicentric, prospective, randomized-controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024
   Article

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Funding

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as