Many Physicians Prescribe Placebos To Patients, Study Finds

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 07 Jan 2008 - 0:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

About 45% of physicians at three U.S. medical schools in the Chicago area have prescribed placebos to patients, and 96% believe that patients can benefit from placebos, according to a study published on Thursday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Bloomberg/Arizona Daily Star reports (Bloomberg/Arizona Daily Star, 1/4). For the study, Rachel Sherman, a medical student at the University of Chicago, and John Hickner, a professor of family medicine at the university, sent a survey to 466 physicians at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and University of Illinois-Chicago and received 231 responses (Steenhuysen, Reuters/Boston Globe, 1/4).

According to the survey, physicians said that placebos can help calm patients, supplement other medications, control pain, satisfy unnecessary requests for treatments and address complaints from patients. Only 12% of respondents said that physicians should never prescribe placebos to patients, the survey found (Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, 1/4).

The use of placebos raises ethical concerns because many physicians do not inform patients that their prescriptions likely would not have any physical effects, study authors said. About 34% of respondents who have prescribed placebos described them as substances that "may help and will not hurt," compared with 19% who described them as medications and 4% who described them as placebos, the survey found (Bloomberg/Arizona Daily Star, 1/4).

In addition, about 48% of respondents said that they prescribe medications to patients without any evidence of likely effectiveness, according to the survey (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/4).

Comments
Sherman said, "It's not about what's inside the pill, it's about using the pill as a symbol of healing," adding, "The division between mind and body is no longer being seen as distinct, and doctors believe that how patients think and feel can influence health" (Bloomberg/Arizona Daily Star, 1/4). She added, "We may underestimate the body's natural healing potential," adding, "This shows that doctors may think that, too" (Reuters/Boston Globe, 1/4).

The American Medical Association recommends that physicians prescribe placebos only with the informed consent of patients and not "merely to mollify a difficult patient" (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/4).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.