Enhancing drug compliance and the placebo effect by raising subjective expectations.

Increasing the patient's subjectively felt effectiveness of a treatment might be a key to enhanced drug compliance and placebo effects, and may in this way enhance the effectiveness of medical treatment at a low cost. Simple methods to achieve this aim are suggested, derived from consumer psychology, psychology of judgement and user-centered design. A drug's design should meet three criteria: an intuitive design which makes the purpose of the drug easily discernible, confirmatory side effects which give feedback that matches the drug's purpose, and mental models which enable the patient to develop an understanding of the drug's mechanism of action.