Pain, mindfulness, and placebo: a systematic review.
Frontiers in integrative neuroscience January 1, 2024 Alexandra Lopes, Rute Sampaio, Isaura Tavares 3 citations
Pain is influenced by psychological and social factors, including the placebo effect. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) reduce pain, but how they work is not fully understood. This systematic review of 19 studies (10 on acute pain, 9 on chronic pain) examined whether placebo effects and expectations contribute to MBIs' pain relief. Only six studies measured placebo effects related to a drug, not the MBI itself. The few studies that did focus on MBIs suggest that placebo and expectations play a role in their effects on pain. Although these factors are often discussed, they are rarely measured in experiments. The review concludes that placebo and expectancy effects clearly contribute to MBIs' pain relief, and future studies should routinely measure them.