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. 2021 Jan 22;11:2130. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-81502-2

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© The Author(s) 2021

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Study design and assessments. The design comprised three online survey assessments: First, prior to randomization [R] (baseline), second, 3 days prior to the exam (pre-exam) and third, 60 days after the exam (post-exam). The latter additionally included the exam score, which was measured as percentage of correct answers in a standardized written midterm medical exam and served as primary outcome. Secondary, i.e. psychometric, outcomes were assessed by standardized questionnaires (PSQ20, Perceived Stress Questionnaire; SOMS, Screening for Somatoform Disorders; STAI, State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory; POMS, Profile of Mood States; CEQ, Credibility and Expectancy Questionnaire; BMQ, Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire; TAI, Test-Anxiety Inventory; PSQI, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; CES-D, Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale; VAS, Visual Analogue Scale) via an online survey. [OLP, Open-label placebos].