Amelia is a general physician. One of her patients claimed to be suffering from constant stomach aches. After running some tests, Amelia concludes that the patient is not suffering from any medical disorder. However, the patient insisted that she has stomach cancer. The patient was then made to participate in an experiment where she was given sugar pills and was told that it was a new medicine for treating cancer. Some other participants in the experiment were also given sugar pills. This best exemplifies _____.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This experiment involves giving the patient a placebo, which is a treatment with no active ingredient. The patient's belief in the effectiveness of the treatment, even though it is only a sugar pill, may trigger a placebo effect, which can cause the patient to experience an improvement in symptoms. Therefore, the experiment involves testing the effectiveness of the placebo. A) Volunteer bias refers to a bias that may arise when a study's participants are not representative of the population being studied. C) Nocebo effect refers to negative effects that may arise when a patient believes that they are receiving a harmful treatment. D) Debriefing refers to a process of informing study participants about the nature and purpose of the study after it has been completed.

Amelia Is a General Physician