Like the placebo effect, but the negative side. Just as someone can believe that drugs will help them and thus get well on that belief alone -- even if the drug was a sugar pill -- others can believe they will get side effects from a drug and thus get unwell on that belief alone.
It comes with an interesting quandary: The more educated a patient is about possible side effects of a drug, the more side effects they will get from that drug.
But it would be wrong not to tell them about the risks before taking the drug...
I haven't really thought about it, but its obvious that the nocebo effect would happen. If the placebo effect exists, so does its corollary.
This word is derived from "Nocent", meaning "harmful", from the Latin verb to harm.
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