Effects of framing and treatment conditions on dependent variables
Three 2 × 5 mixed ANOVAs were conducted to test for effects of the framing group (placebo vs. sugar pill) and the treatment condition (blinded + pure placebo vs. open-label + pure placebo vs. open-label + impure placebo vs. antibiotic treatment vs. no treatment) on general acceptability, personal acceptability and expected effectiveness of the treatment. Descriptive statistics for all groups and conditions are presented in Additional File Study 2 ratings for general acceptability, personal acceptability and predicted effectiveness across five treatment conditions. Box plot showing the rating scores for general acceptability, personal acceptability and predicted effectiveness across the five treatment conditions (blinded + pure placebo; open-label + pure placebo; open-label + impure placebo; antibiotic treatment; no treatment) and two framing groups (placebo frame; sugar pill frame)For general acceptability, there was a significant interaction effect, For personal acceptability, there was a significant interaction effect, For expected effectiveness, there was no significant interaction effect. The main effect of the framing group was again non-significant (