Katja Wiech and Ulrike Bingel wrote a comment about a study by Clemens et al. (2024). Informing patients about potential side effects of pain treatment is a requirement that protects patients and aids decision making, but it increases the likelihood of unwanted nocebo side effects. If patients do not desire all side-effect information, it may be possible to ethically reduce nocebo effects through authorized concealment of side effects, whereby patients and clinicians engage in shared decision-making to regulate the disclosure of side-effect information. Ulrike Bingel and Katja Wiech review the study and contextualize it against the current state of research.
The whole commentary can be read here.