The aims of this study were to determine whether placebo treatment in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is effective for fibromyalgia and to identify possible determinants of the magnitude of any such placebo effect. A systematic literature search was undertaken for RCTs in people with fibromyalgia that included a placebo and/or a no-treatment (observation only or waiting list) control group. Placebo effect size (ES) for pain and other outcomes was measured as the improvement of each outcome from baseline divided by the standard deviation of the change from baseline. This effect was compared with changes in the no-treatment control groups. Meta-analysis was undertaken to combine data from different studies. Subgroup analysis was conducted to identify possible determinants of the placebo ES. A total of 3912 studies were identified from the literature search. After scrutiny, 229 trials met the inclusion criteria. Participants who received placebo in the RCTs experienced significantly better improvements in pain, fatigue, sleep quality, physical function, and other main outcomes than those receiving no treatment. The ES of placebo for pain relief was clinically moderate (0.53, 95%CI 0.48 to 0.57). The ES increased with increasing strength of the active treatment, increasing participant age and higher baseline pain severity, but decreased in RCTS with more women and with longer duration of fibromyalgia. In addition, placebo treatment in RCTs is effective in fibromyalgia. A number of factors (expected strength of treatment, age, gender, disease duration) appear to influence the magnitude of the placebo effect in this condition.

The purpose of this study is to conduct an experiment on undergraduate students (the Generation Y) with the fundamental knowledge on fiqh muamalat (Islamic legal study on business transactions). The research examines the impact of experiential learning to the level of knowledge on Shariah contracts embedded in the game by measuring the pre and post score of the students on the features of the contracts. 114 students from business-related programme took part in the study. They answered pre-experiment questionnaire, played the game and eventually answered post-experiment questionnaire. The game referred to as Muamalat Interactive Game (MIG), an innovation that incorporates the concepts and operations for retail products offered by Islamic banks adopted for personal financial management. This game involves the participants (contracting parties) in several muamalat contracts commonly practiced in Islamic banks, such as as ijarah, tawarruq, rahnu, musharakah mutanaqisah, murabahah and other supporting contracts. The players of the game interactively transact among them to acquire assets, manages cash flow, pay tithe on income and wealth and contribute to charity, applying the muamalat contracts mentioned. The study found that the knowledge of the students significantly enhanced, after the experience of playing the game. They are doing better after the game when identifying the main features of the muamalat contracts, the sequence of transactions forming the contracts and the distinguishing the differences among the contracts. The results also revealed that the game experience made it easy for the students to visual the personal financial management. The results of the experiment revealed the usefulness of using experiential learning for teaching and learning.