2017 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 29-32
It is well known that effectiveness of analgesics is strongly affected by placebo and nocebo effects. In particular, patient’s expectation and anxiety regarding analgesics when they are first recommended by a physician is thought to be important for the expression of these two phenomenons. In this pilot study, we conducted a questionnaire survey to access the correlation between expectation and anxiety for a representative weak opioid anesthetic, tramadol. One hundred eight medical students were recruited for this survey. In order to simulate a clinical situation, the treatment explanation for tramadol was given to the subjects by a pain physician as usual for patients with chronic pain. After that, expectation and anxiety was evaluated using an 11-grade numerical scale. The results showed a positive correlation between the rating of subject’s expectation and anxiety（Spearman’s rank correlation：0.392）, indicating that both can progress together. Our findings suggest that it is difficult not only to increase expectance but also to decrease anxiety for newly presented analgesics stimulaneouly. Although it may be the ultimate achievement for the medical staffs to increase placebo effect and minimize nocebo effect in clinical settings, further study will be needed to assess this issue.
