המפגש הטיפולי ככלי לשיכוך כאב - כיצד יכול הצוות הסיעודי לרתום את אפקט הפלסבו להפחתת כאבם של המטופלים? [סקירה נרטיבית]

Despite advances in understanding pain mechanisms and the progress in the development of novel treatment approaches, many patients are still left with uncontrolled pain. The placebo phenomenon and its ability to attenuate pain have gained much attention in the past couple of decades. Accumulated evidence obtained from research focusing on the placebo phenomenon allows to harness it to address two main and opposite challenges: (1) reducing the placebo response in clinical trials aimed at developing new treatments, and (2) enhancing the placebo effect in clinical practice. While this manuscript primarily focuses on placebo analgesia, the therapeutic placebo effect is relevant for a wide variety of illnesses. The aim of this narrative review is to summarize the state-of-the-art knowledge about the analgesic placebo effect and to highlight the capacity to impact the placebo effect in active interventions. Additionally, the current paper discusses ways in which nurses and other healthcare professionals can harness the placebo effect to alleviate patients' pain and other symptoms, by using verbal and non-verbal communication and emphasizing ritualistic elements in the therapeutic encounter.