The psychosocial variables contributing to treatment expectancies in individuals with irritable bowel syndrome
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The placebo effect has become recognized as an excellent example of mind-body interaction and as a mechanism of therapeutic action in its own right. Theoretical and empirical work has shown that expectations of treatment are important mediators of placebo effects, as well as treatment outcomes in diverse areas of health care. Modern theorists agree that situational and individual factors both contribute to the formation of treatment expectancies; however, only the former has received adequate study. The current research was designed to identify psychosocial variables associated with positive treatment expectations, using irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) as an illness model. People with IBS (n = 289) were recruited online to read hypothetical vignettes about treatments for IBS and to rate their expectations to benefit from treatment on a continuous scale. Participants completed a questionnaire battery measuring various individual difference factors, health belief variables and context-specific psychosocial variables, all identified from the literature as potentially relevant correlates of levels of expectation. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that several of these variables were positively associated with ratings of expected treatment benefit, in particular, perceived somatic focus of treatment, beliefs of personal control over symptoms, levels of optimism and self-focused attention. Weaker relationships were identified for acute health status, coping self-efficacy, catastrophizing and patient-provider relationship; whereas no relationships were found for trait anxiety or motivational factors. Among those with past experience with similar treatments, previous treatment satisfaction was a strong predictor of current expectations. Supplemental analyses revealed that among a sub-sample having previous treatment experience, along with higher levels of self-focused attention, significant relationships between treatment expectancies and independent psychosocial variables were more numerous and more robust. Results are discussed in light of contributions to theory, directions for future research as well as potential clinical applications.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".