The being a patient effect: negative expectations based on group labeling and corresponding treatment affect patient performance.
Psychol Health Med
; 23(1): 99-105, 2018 Jan.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28537088
ABSTRACT
Patient studies provide insights into mechanisms underlying diseases and thus represent a cornerstone of clinical research. In this study, we report evidence that differences between patients and controls might partly be based on expectations generated by the patients' knowledge of being invited and treated as a patient the Being a Patient effect (BP effect). This finding extends previous neuropsychological reports on diagnosis threat. Participants with mild allergies were addressed either as patients or control subjects in a clinical study. We measured the impact of this group labeling and corresponding instructions on pain perception and cognitive performance. Our results provide evidence that the BP effect can indeed affect physiological and cognitive measures in clinical settings. Importantly, these effects can lead to systematic overestimation of genuine disease effects and should be taken into account when disease effects are investigated. Finally, we propose strategies to avoid or minimize this critical confound.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Pacientes
/
Viés
/
Ensaios Clínicos como Assunto
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
Limite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2018
Tipo de documento:
Article