Defining placebos
pain
Previous research has highlighted the difficulties of defining what constitutes a placebo. Especially the category of “impure placebos” is not without contention, because of ambiguous terminology and inconsistent use in the past literature [The present study used a broad definition of impure placebos and adopted a pragmatic approach, in which all active medical treatments (antibiotics, antidepressants and pain killers) were conceptualised as such without consideration of their actual appropriateness. However, it is possible for public acceptability to differ depending on the specific placebo definitions applied.