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Related Concept Videos

The Placebo Effect01:54

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.
Blind Procedures02:07

Blind Procedures

Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
Nurses' Legal Responsibilities I01:27

Nurses' Legal Responsibilities I

In healthcare, informed consent is a crucial process that involves thoroughly communicating medical treatment options to patients, including benefits, risks, potential side effects, and alternatives. This process enables patients to make well-informed decisions about their care, ensuring they understand the implications of their choices before consenting to or refusing treatment.
The legal responsibilities of a nurse regarding informed consent include the following:
Blinding01:11

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Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.
Obedience01:08

Obedience

According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation, obedience...
Confirmation Biases01:31

Confirmation Biases

The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Have you ever fallen prey to the confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias?

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 20, 2026

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants
08:50

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Published on: December 14, 2014

The nocebo effect of informed consent.

Shlomo Cohen1

  • 1Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Bioethics
|July 6, 2012
PubMed
Summary

The nocebo effect, triggered by informed consent, presents a unique ethical challenge in healthcare. This paper explores the nocebo effect of informed consent (NEIC) and its ethical implications for patient care.

Area of Science:

  • Medical Ethics
  • Psychosomatic Medicine
  • Patient Autonomy

Background:

  • The nocebo effect is the negative counterpart to the placebo effect, where negative expectations cause adverse symptoms.
  • Informed consent is an ethical healthcare duty, but disclosing potential side effects can inadvertently trigger the nocebo effect.
  • Existing ethical frameworks address dilemmas between patient autonomy and nonmaleficence, but not the specific issue of nocebo effect of informed consent (NEIC).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To articulate the ethical dilemma posed by the nocebo effect of informed consent (NEIC).
  • To provide a foundational ethical analysis of NEIC.
  • To highlight the unique harm caused by caregivers through information disclosure leading to NEIC.

Main Methods:

  • Ethical analysis of the NEIC dilemma.
Keywords:
autonomyinformation disclosureinformed consentnoceborespectrisk-benefit analysis

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  • Review of principles in medical ethics, including autonomy and nonmaleficence.
  • Conceptualization of the direct causality of harm in NEIC.

    • Main Results:

    • The disclosure of potential negative outcomes during informed consent can directly cause harm via the nocebo effect.
    • NEIC creates a novel ethical conflict, distinct from other information disclosure harms.
    • The caregiver's role in precipitating harm through information is a critical aspect of the NEIC dilemma.

    Conclusions:

    • The nocebo effect of informed consent (NEIC) represents a significant and under-discussed ethical challenge in healthcare.
    • Addressing NEIC requires a nuanced ethical approach that balances the duty to inform with the principle of nonmaleficence.
    • Further ethical deliberation is needed to mitigate the harms associated with NEIC in clinical practice.