Randomised controlled trial of expressive writing and quality of life in men and women treated for colon or rectal cancer.

Psychol Health. 2015;30(3):284-300. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2014.971798. Epub 2014 Oct 27.

Lepore SJ¹, Revenson TA, Roberts KJ, Pranikoff JR, Davey A.

This randomised trial tested (i) whether a home-based expressive writing (EW) intervention improves quality of life in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) and (ii) whether the intervention is more beneficial for men or for people who feel constrained in disclosing cancer-related concerns and feelings.

DESIGN:

Patients treated for CRC were randomised to an EW (n = 101) or control writing (CW; n = 92) group. Assessments were completed at 1 month pre- and post-intervention. Sex and perceived social constraints on disclosure were evaluated as moderators.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Primary outcomes were depressive symptoms, sleep problems and quality of life indicators.

RESULTS:

Eighty-one per cent of participants completed all writing assignments. Consistent with hypotheses, relative to the CW group, participants in the EW group expressed more negative emotion in writing and rated their writings as more meaningful, personal and emotionally revealing. There were no significant main effects of EW or moderating effects of sex or social constraints on outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS:

Although EW is feasible to use with persons who have CRC, it was not effective as a stand-alone psychotherapeutic intervention. Neither was it more effective for men nor for people who felt they could not freely disclose cancer-related concerns and feelings.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289438/

Effects of written emotional expression: the role of positive expectancies.

Health Psychol. 2007 Mar;26(2):174-82.

Langens TA¹, Schüler J.

Writing in an emotional way about stressful or traumatic experiences has beneficial effects on emotional well-being and physical health. Yet the mechanisms that underlie these effects still need to be explored. Integrating research on the effects of positive expectancies, the authors suggest that positive effects of written emotional expression may, in part, depend on expectancies induced by writing about emotional experiences.

DESIGN:

Two studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In both studies, participants wrote about either an upsetting event or trivial issues. After the writing period, participants rated their expectancies that the writing intervention would improve (or impair) their emotional well-being over time.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Study 1 assessed the emotional impact of an upsetting event, whereas Study 2 assessed subjective reports of physical symptoms. In both studies, outcome variables were collected both before and 6 weeks after the writing intervention.

RESULTS:

The results showed that (a) writing about upsetting experiences induced higher positive expectancies than writing about trivial issues and (b) expectancies associated with written emotional expression were related to a reduction in the emotional impact of an upsetting event (Study 1) and to a reduction in physical symptoms (Study 2).

CONCLUSIONS:

There may be 2 alternative ways to render written emotional expression effective in reducing negative emotions: (a) by rendering an emotional experience more meaningful and (b) by inducing positive affect regulation expectancies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17385969

The effect of meaningfulness and integrative processing in expressive writing on positive and negative affect and life satisfaction

Cognition and Emotion

Volume 26, 2012 – Issue 1

 

Nicola S. Schutte , Trudy Searle , Stephen Meade & Neill A. Dark

Pages 144-152

https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.562881

Meaningfulness and integrative processing of expressive writing may influence the effect of expressive writing. Participants completed measures of positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction before and after an expressive writing intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four expressive writing instruction conditions, which combined higher and lower levels of meaning and integrative processing instructions. Meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions had significant effects in increasing positive affect and there was a significant interaction between meaningfulness instructions and integrative processing instructions; participants in the high meaningfulness and high integrative processing instruction condition showed the greatest increase in positive affect. Meaningfulness had a significant effect in decreasing negative affect. The intervention did not influence life satisfaction. Both meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions led to more self-reported personal meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes. More self-reported meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes made as a result of the writing were in turn associated with greater increases in positive affect. The results of the study affirm the importance of meaningfulness and processing in expressive writing and potentially provide information regarding how to increase the effectiveness of expressive writing.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2011.562881?src=recsys