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Optimism may be good for your health. Patients who had positive expectations about their recuperation usually had a good recovery.
There is scientific evidence that when patients have positive thoughts and expect to recover well, they usually do. This suggests that physicians should ask their patients about their expectations of recovery.
Researchers reviewed 16 studies published between 1966 and 1998 that addressed the relationship between patient expectations and recovery.
Results from 15 of the 16 studies showed that when patients had positive expectations about their recovery, they tended to have a better recovery, even when psychological and social factors were taken into consideration.
The largest effects tended to be found in studies of medical conditions, such as obesity, while smaller effects were more common in studies of psychological conditions such as social phobia.
Reasons for the relationship between patient expectations and outcome may be that patients' expectations triggered a physical response or that their expectations conditioned them psychologically to ignore certain symptoms, the authors speculate.
Or it may be that the patients' expectations motivated them to achieve better recovery results.
Canadian Medical Association Journal 2001;165:174-179
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