Cited by 784Pain Management and Placebo EffectPsychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsPharmacovigilance and Adverse Drug Reactions

Nonspecific medication side effects and the nocebo phenomenon

Open access
Barsky, Arthur J.·2002·JAMA

Abstract

Patients taking active medications frequently experience adverse, nonspecific side effects that are not a direct result of the specific pharmacological action of the drug. Although this phenomenon is common, distressing, and costly, it is rarely studied and poorly understood. The nocebo phenomenon, in which placebos produce adverse side effects, offers some insight into nonspecific side effect reporting. We performed a focused review of the literature, which identified several factors that appear to be associated with the nocebo phenomenon and/or reporting of nonspecific side effects while taking active medication: the patient's expectations of adverse effects at the outset of treatment; a process of conditioning in which the patient learns from prior experiences to associate medication-taking with somatic symptoms; certain psychological characteristics such as anxiety, depression, and the tendency to somatize; and situational and contextual factors. Physicians and other health care personnel can attempt to ameliorate nonspecific side effects to active medications by identifying in advance those patients most at risk for developing them and by using a collaborative relationship with the patient to explain and help the patient to understand and tolerate these bothersome but nonharmful symptoms.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1001/jama.287.5.622

Cites

69 of 69 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Negative expectations may play a role in producing side effects and adverse events during trials and treatment.

    “Similarly, there is evidence suggesting that negative expectations can contribute to a variety of side effects and adverse events in clinical trials and medical care (Amanzio et al., 2009; Barsky et al., 2002; Colloca and Finniss, 2012; Petersen et al., 2014).”

    From Distinct neural representations of placebo and nocebo effects (2015) · cites this paper as Barsky et al., 2002

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Barsky, A. J.
Affiliations
Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Barsky, Arthur J.
Venue
JAMA
Published
2002-02-06
Volume
287
Issue
5
Pages
622
ISSN
  • 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
  • 0098-7484
OpenAlex
W2030711540
Cited by
784
References
69
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 31
FWCI
12.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • JAMA (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Toxicology › Pharmacovigilance and Adverse Drug Reactions
Keywords
nocebo effect, adverse drug reactions, placebo effect, patient expectations, conditioning, anxiety, depression, somatization, patient-physician communication, risk factors
MeSH terms
Attitude to Health, Drug Therapy, Humans, Negativism, Placebos, Risk Factors, Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic, Placebo Effect, Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review