A question of faith

Hunter, Philip

doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400905

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…If the patient only believes (i.e., mind) what the practitioner tells her/him, but does not see a meaning or has deep trust (i.e., soul) in the treatment, then she/he might follow the given advices (i.e., body) without having the benefits of long-lasting well-being by integrating the activities to her/his daily life and thereby increase her/his ability to be resilient if the problem returns (cf. Hunter, 2007 ). In this context, without including a reliable measure of the person’s spiritual values, osteopaths may lack the genuine knowledge of the person’s ability to overcome adversity and to return to her/his previously established functional baseline (i.e., resilience), as well as the ability to have a sense of meaning in life that gives a sense of balance in life (i.e., harmony), and allows the individual to experience positive emotions (i.e., positive affect and energy).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Person-centered osteopathic practice: patients’ personality (body, mind, and soul) and health (Ill-being and well-being)

Fahlgren

Nima²,

Archer

et al. 2015

PeerJ

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Background. Osteopathic philosophy and practice are congruent with the biopsychosocial model, a patient-centered approach when treating disease, and the view of the person as a unity (i.e., body, mind, and soul). Nevertheless, a unity of being should involve a systematic person-centered understanding of the patient’s personality as a biopsychosociospiritual construct that influences health (i.e., well-being and ill-being). We suggest Cloninger’s personality model, comprising temperament (i.e., body) and character (i.e., mind and soul), as a genuine paradigm for implementation in osteopathic practice. As a first step, we investigated (1) the relationships between personality and health among osteopathic patients, (2) differences in personality between patients and a control group, and (3) differences in health within patients depending on the presenting problem and gender.Method. 524 osteopathic patients in Sweden (age mean = 46.17, SD = 12.54, 388 females and 136 males) responded to an online survey comprising the Temperament and Character Inventory and measures of health (well-being: life satisfaction, positive affect, harmony in life, energy, and resilience; ill-being: negative affect, anxiety, depression, stress, and dysfunction and suffering associated to the presenting problem). We conducted two structural equation models to investigate the association personality-health; graphically compared the patients’ personality T-scores to those of the control group and compared the mean raw scores using t-tests; and conducted two multivariate analyses of variance, using age as covariate, to compare patients’ health in relation to their presenting problem and gender.Results. The patients’ personality explained the variance of all of the well-being (R2 between .19 and .54) and four of the ill-being (R2 between .05 and .43) measures. Importantly, self-transcendence, the spiritual aspect of personality, was associated to high levels of positive emotions and resilience. Osteopathic patients, compared to controls, scored higher in six of the seven personality dimensions. These differences were, however, not considerably large (divergences in T-scores were <1 SD, Cohen’s d between 0.12 and 0.40). Presenting problem and gender did not have an effect on any of the health measures.Conclusion. The patient’s personality as a ternary construct (i.e., body, mind, and soul), which is in line with osteopathy, is associated to both well-being and ill-being. The lack of substantial differences in personality between patients and controls implies that the patients had not any personality disorders. Hence, osteopaths might, with proper education, be able to coach their patients to self-awareness. The lack of differences in health variables between osteopathic patients with different presenting problems suggests that practitioners should focus on the person’s health regardless of the type of presenting problem.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Person-centered osteopathic practice: patients’ personality (body, mind, and soul) and health (Ill-being and well-being)

Fahlgren

Nima²,

Archer

et al. 2015

PeerJ

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“…The pla-cebo effect is not just a psychological effect as placebo treatment may cause physical changes in the body such as effects on the immune system [94]. In this respect, the faith in a medicine and the subsequent placebo effect may influence the course of a common cold illness [95].…”

Section: Placebo Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Over the counter medicines for colds

Eccles

2009

Commond Cold

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Over the counter (OTC) medicines may be defined as medicines that are freely available to the public without a prescription from a doctor. Self-medication for common cold is now encouraged by most government health authorities in order not to overload health resources in winter. This chapter examines the efficacy of the different groups of medicines for the relief of common cold symptoms (analgesics, decongestants, antihistamines, antitussives, menthol, expectorants and mucolytics, throat lozenges and sprays, multisymptom products, and hot drinks). Safety is the most important factor in any common cold medicine because of the widespread use of the medicines. Because of limitations in dose due to safety concerns many OTC medicines are used at the limits of efficacy and there is often little clinical data to support efficacy, and safety is often supported from a long history of safe use. Aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen are the most widely used analgesic treatments to alleviate pain and fever both as monotherapies and in combination with other cold medicines and their efficacy and safety is supported by data from trials on other pain models. The efficacy of nasal decongestants can be supported by clinical trials, and similarly the symptom relief provided by menthol for nasal congestion. The efficacy data for antihistamines, and antitussives is limited and controversial, and there is no real clinical support for the efficacy of expectorants and mucolytics. There is no doubt that all of the OTC common cold medicines are popular with consumers and that they do provide relief from symptoms that in some cases may be more due to a placebo effect than a pharmacological effect of an active ingredient. Multi-symptom medicines provide a safe and convenient way of treating the common cold syndrome of multiple symptoms but their use is sometimes criticised when not all symptoms need to be treated. Hot drinks can provide immediate and sustained relief from symptoms, especially cough and sore throat.

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“…Trusting a doctor is considered to generate positive placebo effects (de la Fuente-Fernandez 2009;Hunter 2007). In other words, the potential effects of a doctor are not limited to nocebo effects.…”

Section: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%