Communication and clinical education about placebo and nocebo effects

The words and the behaviour of a healthcare professional can determine much of a treatment’s success. Communication lies at the heart of medicine, but it can both heal and harm patients depending on the communication strategies that clinicians use. How do you ensure optimal outcomes as a healthcare professional? At IPS we want to understand how communication contributes to health outcomes in the clinic, and how communication strategies can be used to improve medical treatment for patients. In addition, we strive to bring the knowledge that this research generates to the clinic, for instance by translating it to education materials including e-learning,and communication training in VR.

Projects

The placebo and nocebo effects of communication

We study how communication can heal and harm when patients are confronted with an illness. Most of our studies focus on serious illnesses such as advanced cancer.

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Virtual communication training tool

Develop an innovative e-learning and VR training that helps healthcare providers to optimize placebo effects and minimize nocebo effects.

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Picture this!

Exploring the effects of clinicians’ helpful and harmful communication behaviours on patients’ brain activity and brain connectivity. 

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“Special Needs by Placebo”: Programme to Advise, Normalize And Control its European Administration (PANACEA)

There is little formal training on how to deal with placebo and nocebo effects in clinical practice. This project aims to address this gap by educating clinicians of today and the future.

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Watch your words!

The development and evaluation of a communication training for physical therapists to promote placebo effects and prevent nocebo effects in the treatment of low back pain. 

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PANACEA & Erasmus Summer school

The first Erasmus Summer school of the PANACEA Consortium in Madrid (July 15-19) on placebo and nocebo effects, offering high-level interdisciplinary training to students on placebo and nocebo effects from various UNA Europa universities. The second edition of the summer school will take place in July 2025.

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Symposium ‘How Can We Effectively Harness the Placebo Effect in Healthcare?’

Healthcare professionals, researchers, and students gathered at the IPS symposium ‘How Can We Effectively Harness the Placebo Effect in Healthcare?’ on 18 November. The symposium was organized as part of the PANACEA: Education on Placebo consortium, an Erasmus+ project co-funded by the European Union, which aims to bridge the gap between scientific evidence on placebo and nocebo effects and their application in current and future clinical practice.

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Other themes

Placebo and nocebo effects in physical symptoms

Placebo and nocebo effect have been shown to affect a wide range of physical symptoms: pain, itch, breathlessness.

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Placebo and nocebo effects in the brain

At IPS, we are dedicated to advancing the understanding of the brain mechanisms behind the placebo and nocebo effect.

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Placebo and nocebo effects in the immune and endocrine system

Expectancies have been shown to affect not only self-reported outcomes, such as pain and itch, but also physiological markers such as endocrine and immune responses.

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Placebo effects in children

Research is often done with adult volunteers. This is also true for research on how placebo and nocebo effects influence medical conditions and symptoms, and wellbeing.

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Therapeutic interventions to maximize placebo and minimize nocebo effects

Basic research generates a lot of knowledge on how placebo and nocebo effects work. At IPS we strive to translate this knowledge into feasible and easy to apply clinical applications and therapeutic interventions for people with chronic medical complaints or health conditions. 

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