Mills Llewellyn, Boakes Robert A, Colagiuri Ben
University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Sydney, NSW, Australia
University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
J Psychopharmacol. 2016 Apr;30(4):388-94. doi: 10.1177/0269881116632374. Epub 2016 Mar 1.
Expectancies have been shown to play a role in the withdrawal syndrome of many drugs of addiction; however, no studies have examined the effects of expectancies across a broad range of caffeine withdrawal symptoms, including craving.
The purpose of the current study was to use caffeine as a model to test the effect of expectancy on withdrawal symptoms, specifically whether the belief that one has ingested caffeine is sufficient to reduce caffeine withdrawal symptoms and cravings in abstinent coffee drinkers.
We had 24-h abstinent regular coffee drinkers complete the Caffeine Withdrawal Symptom Questionnaire (CWSQ) before and after receiving decaffeinated coffee. One-half of the participants were led to believe the coffee was regular caffeinated coffee (the 'Told Caffeine' condition) and one-half were told that it was decaffeinated (the 'Told Decaf' condition).
Participants in the Told Caffeine condition reported a significantly greater reduction in the factors of cravings, fatigue, lack of alertness and flu-like feelings of the CWSQ, than those in the Told Decaf condition.
Our results indicated that the belief that one has consumed caffeine can affect caffeine withdrawal symptoms, especially cravings, even when no caffeine was consumed.
预期已被证明在许多成瘾药物的戒断综合征中起作用；然而，尚无研究考察预期对广泛的咖啡因戒断症状（包括渴望）的影响。
本研究的目的是以咖啡因作为模型，测试预期对戒断症状的影响，具体而言，即对于已戒酒的咖啡饮用者，相信自己摄入了咖啡因是否足以减轻咖啡因戒断症状和渴望。
我们让连续24小时未摄入咖啡因的常喝咖啡者在饮用脱咖啡因咖啡前后完成咖啡因戒断症状问卷（CWSQ）。一半参与者被引导相信咖啡是普通含咖啡因咖啡（“告知含咖啡因”组），另一半被告知咖啡是脱咖啡因的（“告知脱咖啡因”组）。
“告知含咖啡因”组的参与者报告称，与“告知脱咖啡因”组相比，CWSQ中渴望、疲劳、警觉性缺乏和类似流感症状等因素的减轻程度显著更大。
我们的结果表明，即使未摄入咖啡因，相信自己摄入了咖啡因也会影响咖啡因戒断症状，尤其是渴望。
