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Placebo

  • Living reference work entry
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Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics

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Abstract

The term placebo is widely used to indicate a perceived health-related improvement following administration of a treatment lacking a therapeutically acknowledged active component. For a long time placebo response meaning “I shall please” or “I shall be acceptable or pleasing” was something of a mystery, at best linked to but not altogether explicable within the clinical encounter. Attempts at explanation tended to be psychological, based on the probability that response to a placebo was a consequence of the patient’s own expectation of benefit, confidence, and trust in the practitioner or unawareness of the “dummy” nature of treatment. What was lacking was a scientific theory and detailed understanding of the underlying psychology, and more importantly knowledge of just how a patient’s thoughts and beliefs might result in biochemical and cellular changes which mimic some of those caused by medicinal drugs. Recent research has begun to unravel important aspects of the phenomenon.

The ethical implications of placebo use either in clinical practice or as a baseline comparator in clinical trials turn on important aspects of duty of care toward patients, autonomy, informed consent, and trust.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Applied Ethics, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    David Badcott

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  1. David Badcott
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Correspondence to David Badcott .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University Center for Healthcare Ethics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Henk ten Have

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Badcott, D. (2015). Placebo. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_339-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_339-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2

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