The Effect of Marketing Variable on Effect of Active Drugs

The efficacy of the placebo effect has been proved in many prior studies by comparing the symptoms and measures of patients. Placebo has been proved to help in treating illnesses such as depression, stomach ulcer and chronic headaches.

A Meta analysis checked 47 studies about placebo and showed great significance when a patient is treated with placebo pill, no active substance, just by activating conditioning and expectation mechanism in his body, thus providing to the healing process, and that is it's importance.

In recent years studies established a relationship between marketing variables (such as price, label) to the efficacy of a product. In addition- a unique research run in 2008 showed a significant relationship between the marketing strategies and the efficacy of medication; more specifically, patients in this research experienced less (controlled) pain when treated with placebo medication introduced to them as more expensive than patients treated with placebo medication that was introduced to them as much cheaper. All patients were treated with the exact same medication.

In the investigator's experiment the investigators design a laboratory experiment to determine if marketing factors could invoke the placebo effects described earlier. For the initial laboratory experiment, we decided to examine the difference in price, on the efficacy of an OTC analgesic through the mediation of low- voltage electrical pulses to the patient's wrist.

The investigators study hypothesis is that marketing variables such as price and brand name will affect the therapeutic efficacy of an analgesic, i.e. a medicine will have greater influence when the patient is aware of its price compared to one who is not.