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Placebo and Nocebo Effects on Itch: Methodological and Clinical Implications

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Abstract

Patients often experience beneficial (placebo) or worsened (nocebo) treatment effects only due to the expectation they have about the treatment (e.g., “This treatment will work for me”). These placebo and nocebo effects have only relatively recently received attention for symptoms of itch. Experimental studies indicate that learning via verbal suggestion and conditioning play a key role in placebo and nocebo effects on itch in line with research in other areas, such as pain research. Results on contagious itch in both animals and humans further emphasize the role of social learning and suggest that itch sensations might be particularly susceptible to placebo and nocebo effects. When analyzing placebo effects in clinical trials, a meta-analysis demonstrated at least moderate placebo effects on itch in different dermatological conditions. For clinical and research practice, an overview is given of how to control for placebo and nocebo effects and how to optimally make use of these effects in the treatment of itch.

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Acknowledgements

Realization of this book chapter was supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and an Innovation Scheme (Vidi) Grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), awarded to AWM Evers. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, 9555, Leiden, 2300 RB, The Netherlands

    Andrea W. M. Evers PhD, Kaya J. Peerdeman MSc, Danielle J. P. Bartels & Antoinette I. M. van Laarhoven

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Andrea W. M. Evers PhD & Antoinette I. M. van Laarhoven

  3. Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Andrea W. M. Evers PhD, Kaya J. Peerdeman MSc, Danielle J. P. Bartels & Antoinette I. M. van Laarhoven

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  1. Andrea W. M. Evers PhD
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  3. Danielle J. P. Bartels
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  4. Antoinette I. M. van Laarhoven
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Correspondence to Andrea W. M. Evers PhD .

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  1. Department of Dermatology, University of Brest, Brest, France

    Laurent Misery

  2. Center of Chronic Pruritus, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Sonja Ständer

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Evers, A.W.M., Peerdeman, K.J., Bartels, D.J.P., van Laarhoven, A.I.M. (2016). Placebo and Nocebo Effects on Itch: Methodological and Clinical Implications. In: Misery, L., Ständer, S. (eds) Pruritus. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33142-3_14

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