What would your answer be if a trial participant asks you to explain what a placebo is and why it may be used?

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question
Focus Your Answer On
1st Answer Example
2nd Answer Example
Community Answers

Understanding terminology is crucial, especially when dealing with medical issues/patients. This is a question the interviewer will use to test your knowledge and ability to express that knowledge to someone else in a manner they can understand.

Your answer to this question can be brief and concise. Describe how you would tell a participant what a placebo is in easy-to-understand terminology.

"I would explain to the participant that a placebo is an inactive pill, liquid, or powder with no treatment value. I will further explain that in a placebo-controlled trial, some portion of the participants will receive a placebo instead of an active drug or experimental treatment and that this is done to assess the experimental treatment's effectiveness and safety versus no treatment at all."

"I will tell the participant that a placebo is a liquid, powder, or pill that has no treatment value and is used in clinical trials to help determine the difference between the active drug or experiment compared to no treatment at all."

Anonymous Answer

"Placebo is a pill, liquid, or device that does not have any effect or treatment on a certain disease which is given to a group of participants in the study and then reviewed against the group of people getting the study treatment."

Marcie's Feedback

You've done a great job defining a placebo. You might go into more detail about how the patient won't know whether or not they are receiving a placebo. Have you ever taken a placebo or administered one before in the past? You could also talk about this.