What is the placebo effect, why is it important, and how do researchers deal with it in outcome research?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The placebo effect refers to the powerful healing that can be produced by apparently inert treatment. It is important because it has been repeatedly shown to be a factor that can produce many of the benefits associated with physical and psychological treatments, thus making it difficult to determine if an active ingredient in the treatments was effective. Researchers have to isolate these active ingredients to determine whether they have effects beyond what the placebo effect alone could account for. Researchers do this by including a placebo control group in their outcome studies, and then they use double-blind procedures so that neither the patient nor the person treating the patient knows whether the patient received the active ingredient or the placebo.