Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 1997; 2: 184
It is known that patients’ responses to placebo can be anything from 0–100% of the total therapeutic effect. This investigation is to determine which major factors (e.g. patient illness, type of placebo, setting, study design including blinding and randomisation etc.) contribute most to the size of the placebo effect.
Published literature of placebo-controlled trials on painful conditions which used a visual analogue scale to measure outcome were identified from MEDLINE (search strategy: ((PLACEBO* or SHAM*) and (RANDOM* or CONTROL*) and PAIN*) not (TG=ANIMAL or TG=IN VITRO or (REVIEW* in PT.) Subsequently, hard copies of publications meeting these inclusion criteria were obtained (from Exeter Medical Library, The British Library and the BMA) and key data were extracted in a standardised fashion from the original papers. In total, 403 papers (English, German or French) were identified for 1986–96. From each, 27 variables were recorded, including number and gender of patients, medical condition, type of intervention, extent of VAS score for treatment and placebo groups, setting of the study etc. The magnitude of the placebo response will be correlated with each of these factors, opening the way to optimising the placebo response in clinical practice. The software package REVMAN, developed and provided by the Cochrane Collaboration, will be applied to perform one meta-analysis of a relevent factor.
These will be presented in detail during the symposium.
