In: Psychology
What is the nocebo effect? Why does the nocebo effect create a moral dilemma in the informed consent procedure? According to Cohen, when do doctors have good reason to NOT disclose potential side effects of treatments to their patients? Do you agree? Explain why or why not.
While placebo effect is the perspective of mind over medicine, it has a dark side as well known as the nocebo effect. This has the opposite effect, i.e. when an individual is told about the negative impacts of something, it starts exhibiting symptoms for real. The verdict here lies in the fact that if one believes that the treatment would not help you, it really doesn’t. The nocebo effect creates a moral dilemma for informed consent. This is so because when a patient is informed about the potential risks involved in a medical procedure, it is said to negatively impact their psyche. These may then in turn activate the nocebo effect and end up having devastating consequences medically as well. According to Cohen, in analogy to the original problem with the concept of knowledge, these Gettier-type cases show an indeterminacy in the concept of IC: we either need to add some explicit additional condition of causal connection between information and consent, or else we should understand the concept in a new way—specifically, since the practice of autonomy necessarily involves some consideration of the relevant information, we must understand free consent in a way that no longer refers to patient autonomy. This essentially also means that this needs to be understood in comprehensive detail and analysed through different perspectives, especially the vulnerability of the psyche of the individual concerned. In cases where higher likelihood of negative cognitions is anticipated, it is better to not inform the patient regarding potential risks. In this manner, this should be considered independent from the required autonomy of the individual concerned.