Evaluation & the health professions
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The study aimed to assess the attitudes of laypeople toward clinical placebo use. One of three imaginary stories was presented randomly in a popular news portal and participants (6,404 individuals) were asked to rate nine statements about it. In the stories, placebo therapy was used in a deceptive way. ⋯ According to participants' ratings, helping patients is more important than avoiding deception. They did not think that they would have felt deceived in the described situation or that treatment would have been successful in a fully informed case. Patients' attitude toward deceptive placebo use appears to be more pragmatic than has been previously supposed.