Publication year
2018Source
Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 162, (2018), article D2806ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
Medical Psychology
Journal title
Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde
Volume
vol. 162
Subject
Radboudumc 5: Inflammatory diseases RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health SciencesAbstract
A recent meta-analysis showed that antidepressants are more effective than placebo. In placebo-controlled trials, the placebo effect is subtracted from the verum effect to find the specific effect of each antidepressant. In clinical practice, however, the situation is the other way around: non-specific ('placebo') effects are added to the specific effect of the antidepressant and together these effects determine the outcome. The non-specific aspects comprise strength of the therapeutic relation, conviction of both doctor and patient in the diagnosis and treatment, and hope that treatment will induce remission. In 2006, it was found that the psychiatrist who gave the treatment had a larger effect on the outcome than the effect of verum plus placebo. Some psychiatrists induced improvement, even with placebo, while others made patients worse, even with verum. This implies that while choosing the right antidepressant is important, choosing the right psychiatrist is even more important. When a doctor loses faith in antidepressants, so will his patients and non-specific aspects will have nocebo rather than placebo effects.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [227613]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [86193]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.