1-in-5 doctors use placebo as therapy

MONTREAL, May 13 (UPI) -- Doctors prescribe placebos or sub-therapeutic doses of medication because, in many cases, they think it will have therapeutic effects, a Canadian survey found.

Professor Amir Raz of McGill University in Montreal says the survey found one in five respondents -- physicians and psychiatrists in Canadian medical schools -- say they administered or prescribed a placebo.

Thirty-five percent of psychiatrists report prescribing sub-therapeutic doses of medication -- doses that are below, sometimes considerably below, the minimal recommended therapeutic level -- to treat their patients.

Sixty percent of the psychiatrists -- a significantly higher proportion than for other medical practitioners -- say placebos can have therapeutic effects.

"Psychiatrists seem to place more value in the influence placebos wield on the mind and body," Raz says in a statement. "Only 2 per cent of those psychiatrists believe that placebos have no clinical benefit at all."