Longterm Effects of Expectations on Mood

August 15, 2019 updated by: Philipps University Marburg Medical Center

Longterm Effects of Expectations on Mood: An Experimental Investigation

The study tries to identify whether positive expectations, induced with a placebo nasal-spray, have short- and longterm effects on participant's mood.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Healthy volunteers are informed that a new application method for a well-known antidepressant would be tested. They will randomly be assigned to the experimental group (taking the antidepressant which is in fact an active placebo) or the control group (not taking a placebo). Then participants watch a well established film sequence to induce sadness. Sadness is assessed before and after receiving the nasal spray and watching the film sequence. In the seven consecutive days the participant's mood is assessed each day, only the experimental group is taking the placebo each day. Afterwards participants will watch another sad film sequence and sadness will be assessed before and afterwards.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

90

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Deutschland
      • Marburg, Deutschland, Germany, 35037
        • Philipps-Universität Marburg

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 75 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • healthy volunteers
  • fluent in German language

Exclusion Criteria:

  • mental disorders
  • allergic to capsaicin
  • allergic to sesame oil
  • intake of psychopharmacological drugs
  • intake of illegal drugs in the last two weeks
  • consumption of alcohol in the last twelve hours
  • students in medicine, pharmacy, or psychology
  • completed studies in medicine, pharmacy or psychology

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Positive Expectations Group
Participants receive a nasal spray that is in fact a placebo. However, they are told that it protects from experiencing negative emotions and generally improves their mood. They take the nasal spay in the laboratory and on seven consecutive days. Participants watch two film sequences that are supposed to induce sadness.

Placebo nasal spray

Film Sequence

No Intervention: No-treatment control group
Participants do not receive the nasal spray. Participants watch two film sequences that are supposed to induce sadness.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-X)
Time Frame: Directly before and after watching the film sequence and on the following seven days, each assessment is taking four minutes, in total 36 minutes.
Items of PANAS-X: Sadness Score ("sad", "blue", "downhearted", "alone", "lonely") and Items "Surprised", "concentrating", "happy". All Items will be rated on a visual analogue scale from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much).
Directly before and after watching the film sequence and on the following seven days, each assessment is taking four minutes, in total 36 minutes.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Coping with stress and daily hassles, general mood and concentration.
Time Frame: On seven consecutive days, each assesment is taking 3-5 minutes, in total 21 to 35 minutes

The following Items are developed by the authors and will also be rated on a visual analogue scale (VAS) from 0 to 10.

"How do you feel at the moment"? "How did you feel yesterday?" "How stress-resistent did you feel yesterday?" "How stress-resistant do you feel at the moment?"

On seven consecutive days, each assesment is taking 3-5 minutes, in total 21 to 35 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Winfried Rief, Professor, Philipps-Univeristy of Marburg

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 1, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 15, 2019

Study Completion (Actual)

May 15, 2019

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 16, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 30, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

July 31, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 16, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 15, 2019

Last Verified

August 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2018-15k

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Healthy Participants

Clinical Trials on Placebo

Search Similar Trials