Attention Placebo Control in Randomized Controlled Trials of Psychosocial Interventions: Theory and Practice

Overview

Journal Trials

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialties General Medicine
Pharmacology

Date 2015 Apr 16

PMID 25872619

Citations 32

Authors

Lukka Popp

Silvia Schneider

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Unlabelled: Attention placebo control (APC) is considered a highly valid control condition when conducting trials of social interventions. Unfortunately, an appropriate APC condition is rarely used. This letter discusses the tension between methodological and ethical requirements of an APC group in psychosocial interventions based on our experiences with a randomized controlled efficacy study of a parent training program. To prevent negative side effects and high drop-out rates, feasible and accepted attention control conditions are discussed. The paradigms of placebo research must be adapted to the special challenges of psychosocial intervention research.

Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02313493 : registered 10 December 2014.

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