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Family Practice Vol. 6, No. 3, 188-192
© Oxford University Press 1989

research-article

Effect of Patients' Expectations on Recovery from Acute Tonsillitis

BJÖRN OLSSON*, BIRGITTA OLSSON** and GÖSTA TIBBLIN

Department of Family Medicine, Akademiska sjakhuset S-751 85 Uppaala, Sweden
*Hertsö Health Centre Luleå, Sweden
**Department of Social Medicine Luleå, Sweden

Correspondence to Dr Tibblin

To investigate whether the personal attention paid to a patient can affect his or her subjective recovery from acute tonsillitis, a controlled study was performed on 100 patients consulting a doctor for this disease. At the consultation a randomly assigned experimental group (n=50) was given more detailed information about the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis and also a more extensive physical examination than a control group (n=50). At a follow-up interview two days later significantly more of the experimental group felt that their symptoms had improved (P<0.005) than the control group, significantly more felt that the treatment had helped them (P<0.005) and significantly more felt they had received sufficient information about their illness and treatment (P<0.001). A deliberate attempt to maximize the expectation effect was thus shown to influence the clinical course of acute tonsillitis, recorded as the degree of subjective improvement.


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