Longterm Effects of Expectations on Mood

Philipps University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy Participants

Treatments: Other: Placebo

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03607214

2018-15k

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study tries to identify whether positive expectations, induced with a placebo nasal-spray, have short- and longterm effects on participant's mood.

Full description

Healthy volunteers are informed that a new application method for a well-known antidepressant would be tested. They will randomly be assigned to the experimental group (taking the antidepressant which is in fact an active placebo) or the control group (not taking a placebo). Then participants watch a well established film sequence to induce sadness. Sadness is assessed before and after receiving the nasal spray and watching the film sequence. In the seven consecutive days the participant's mood is assessed each day, only the experimental group is taking the placebo each day. Afterwards participants will watch another sad film sequence and sadness will be assessed before and afterwards.

Enrollment: 90 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 75 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• healthy volunteers
• fluent in German language

Exclusion criteria

• mental disorders
• allergic to capsaicin
• allergic to sesame oil
• intake of psychopharmacological drugs
• intake of illegal drugs in the last two weeks
• consumption of alcohol in the last twelve hours
• students in medicine, pharmacy, or psychology
• completed studies in medicine, pharmacy or psychology

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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90 participants in 2 patient groups

Positive Expectations Group

Experimental group

Description:

Participants receive a nasal spray that is in fact a placebo. However, they are told that it protects from experiencing negative emotions and generally improves their mood. They take the nasal spay in the laboratory and on seven consecutive days. Participants watch two film sequences that are supposed to induce sadness.

Treatment:

Other: Placebo

No-treatment control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants do not receive the nasal spray. Participants watch two film sequences that are supposed to induce sadness.