engleski

Subjective and objective measures of placebo treatment in pain perception

The placebo effect in pain perception manifests in reducing pain sensation in situations where participants believe that some (placebo) treatment will have an analgesic effect. The aim of the study was to examine how different placebo manipulation affects two subjective (pain intensity and pain unpleasantness) and two objective (simple reaction time and reaction force) measures of sensory processing. In an experimental study, the pain was evoked by the electrocutaneous stimulation applied to participants' fingers. Participants were divided into one control and two experimental groups. In the first experimental group, placebo manipulation was induced by verbal instruction on the effectiveness of the new analgesic cream. In the second group, in addition to the same verbal instruction, the conditioning process by reducing the intensity without participants' knowledge was added. The results showed that there was no placebo effect at all. There were no statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups or between the two experimental groups. An apparent effect of the or- der of measurements was observed on three criteria measures, which could be easily interpreted as a placebo effect if there was no control group. The results clearly indicate that studying the placebo effect is a rather susceptible area.

pain, placebo, pain ratings, simple reaction time

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