Open-Label Placebo for the Treatment of Depression
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
1969-12-31
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Open label placebo treatment has been tried for irritable bowel syndrome (Kaptchuk et al,
2010), where three weeks of open label placebo proved superior to a wait-listed control
group. Another pilot study demonstrated efficacy in treating children suffering from ADHD
with open label placebo treatment (Sandler & Bodfish, 2007). Recent work has shown that
placebo openly given can have significant analgesic effects for acute migraines (Kam-Hansen
et al, 2014) and for experimentally-induced pain (Schafer at al, 2015). A preliminary attempt
to treat depression with open label placebo proved the feasibility of such a study, but was
too small and brief for conclusive results (Kelley et al, 2012).
We provide here the protocol for a study to assess the effect of open label placebo treatment
for depression.