MedTrace Logo

Animal-assisted Placebo-induced Analgesia

NCT03898141 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 132

Last updated 2019-07-31

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

An increased interest of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) can be observed within clinical practice, even though it is still not entirely clear how the presence of an animal contributes to the outcome of a treatment. One theory maintains that the presence of an animal influences the relationship between health-provider and patient, which then in turn affects the outcome of the treatment. To investigate this theory, this study will combine AAI with a placebo intervention, as placebo interventions offer the basic form of intervention working through relationship and expectancy.

The effects of the presence of a dog will be assessed with a standardized experimental heat pain paradigm (TSA-II) in a randomized controlled trial in healthy participants (N=128). After a baseline measurements of heat pain threshold and tolerance, participants will be randomly assigned to one of the following four conditions: a) analgesia-expectation, no dog present, b) analgesia-expectation, dog present, c) no-expectation, no dog present and d) no-expectation, dog present.

The dog will be introduced after randomization. Expectancy will be induced by a deceptive cream which is said to helps against pain. Afterwards, posttreatment measurements will be conducted and participants fill in questionnaires about their perceptions of the experimenter.

Conditions

  • Pain
  • Relations, Researcher-Subject

Interventions

OTHER

Placebo (PL)

Participants will get deceptive and receive an inert cream (=placebo intervention) that "reduces pain".

OTHER

Dog only (DO)

In the dog intervention a dog will be present during the second measurements. However, participants will only learn the true aims of the presence of the dog after the study (delayed informed consent).

OTHER

Animal-assisted placebo (AAPL)

Participants receive the placebo intervention in the presence of a dog.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Prof. Undine Lang, University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK), Basel, Switzerland

    collaborator UNKNOWN

  • University of Basel

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-03-27
Primary Completion
2019-07-02
Completion
2019-07-02

Countries

  • Switzerland

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03898141 on ClinicalTrials.gov