Expressive writing in early breast cancer survivors

Craft, Melissa; Davis, Gail C.; Paulson, René

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2012.06008.x

Cited by 51 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…Participants were asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about their cancer and treatment-related emotions during 20-30 minutes over 3/4 days at different intervals. Craft et al 74 assessed two additional types of unfacilitated EW interventions in which topics changed: participants had to write about a self-selected trauma in one group and about facts of treatment and daily events related to breast cancer in the other group. One other study 79 evaluated a modified version of the unfacilitated EW intervention using the same topic but feelings and emotions had to be expressed in a positive way.…”

Section: Systematic Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of the 64 included studies, 9,51-58,66-119 59 9,51,[54][55][56][57][58][66][67][68][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86]88,89,91, were RCTs, and four 52,78,87,92 were non-randomised studies. The remaining study 53 was a matched case-control study.…”

Section: Systematic Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The patients in Jensen-Johansen et al 76 had recently completed treatment with surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Participants in Craft et al, 74 Gellaitry et al, 75 Hughes 54 and Walker et al…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The number of studies published by year is shown in Figure 2, and the frequency of outcomes evaluated across the included studies is shown in Figure 3. 74 Gellaitry 2010, 75 Henry 2010, 53 Hughes 2007, 54 Jensen-Johansen 2013, 76 Mosher 2012, 77 Park 2012, 78 (Golkaramnay 2007 68 ), Graf 2008, 95 Krpan 2013, 96 …”

Section: Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants were reported to have completed definitive treatment, 74 were receiving the last radiotherapy appointment 75 or were still receiving curative radiotherapy. 54,59 In the remaining studies, participants in Henry et al 53 had stage 0-III breast cancer and had completed radiation, and in Park and Yi 78 they had stage II and III breast cancer and had undergone surgery, radiotherapy and hormone therapy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does therapeutic writing help people with long-term conditions? Systematic review, realist synthesis and economic considerations

Nyssen

Taylor

Wong

et al. 2016

Health Technol Assess

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BackgroundWriting therapy to improve physical or mental health can take many forms. The most researched model of therapeutic writing (TW) is unfacilitated, individual expressive writing (written emotional disclosure). Facilitated writing activities are less widely researched.Data sourcesDatabases, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, were searched from inception to March 2013 (updated January 2015).Review methodsFour TW practitioners provided expert advice. Study procedures were conducted by one reviewer and checked by a second. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomised comparative studies were included. Quality was appraised using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. Unfacilitated and facilitated TW studies were analysed separately underInternational Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision chapter headings. Meta-analyses were performed where possible using RevMan version 5.2.6 (RevMan 2012, The Cochrane Collaboration, The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark). Costs were estimated from a UK NHS perspective and three cost–consequence case studies were prepared. Realist synthesis followed Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards guidelines.ObjectivesTo review the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of TW for people with long-term conditions (LTCs) compared with no writing, or other controls, reporting any relevant clinical outcomes. To conduct a realist synthesis to understand how TW might work, and for whom.ResultsFrom 14,658 unique citations, 284 full-text papers were reviewed and 64 studies (59 RCTs) were included in the final effectiveness reviews. Five studies examined facilitated TW; these were extremely heterogeneous with unclear or high risk of bias but suggested that facilitated TW interventions may be beneficial in individual LTCs. Unfacilitated expressive writing was examined in 59 studies of variable or unreported quality. Overall, there was very little or no evidence of any benefit reported in the following conditions (number of studies): human immunodeficiency virus (six); breast cancer (eight); gynaecological and genitourinary cancers (five); mental health (five); asthma (four); psoriasis (three); and chronic pain (four). In inflammatory arthropathies (six) there was a reduction in disease severity [n = 191, standardised mean difference (SMD) –0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) –0.96 to –0.26] in the short term on meta-analysis of four studies. For all other LTCs there were either no data, or sparse data with no or inconsistent, evidence of benefit. Meta-analyses conducted acrossallof the LTCs provided no evidence that unfacilitated emotional writing had any effect on depression at short- (n = 1563, SMD –0.06, 95% CI –0.29 to 0.17, substantial heterogeneity) or long-term (n = 778, SMD –0.04 95% CI –0.18 to 0.10, little heterogeneity) follow-up, or on anxiety, physiological or biomarker-based outcomes. One study reported costs, no studies reported cost-effectiveness and 12 studies reported resource use; and meta-analysis suggested reduced medication use but no impact on health centre visits. Estimated costs of intervention were low, but there was insufficient evidence to judge cost-effectiveness. Realist synthesis findings suggested that facilitated TW is a complex intervention and group interaction contributes to the perception of benefit. It was unclear from the available data who might benefit most from facilitated TW.LimitationDifficulties with developing realist synthesis programme theory meant that mechanisms operating during TW remain obscure.ConclusionsOverall, there is little evidence to support the therapeutic effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of unfacilitated expressive writing interventions in people with LTCs. Further research focused on facilitated TW in people with LTCs could be informative.Study registrationThis study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012003343.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme.

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Section: Systematic Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Systematic Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does therapeutic writing help people with long-term conditions? Systematic review, realist synthesis and economic considerations

Nyssen

Taylor

Wong

et al. 2016

Health Technol Assess

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Women's experiences of the therapeutic value of writing about pregnancy sickness

Nicholson

2017

Couns and Psychother Res

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Background There is evidence of the beneficial effects of writing therapy in relation to a range of disorders. This is the first study to evaluate those effects in the field of pregnancy sickness. Aim To analyse the experiences of women using writing therapy to address issues associated with pregnancy sickness. Method Ten women with an age range of 32–48 years participated in this research study. All had been hospitalised at least once with severe pregnancy sickness symptoms in the form of hyperemesis gravidarum. Participants were invited to write reflectively about their former pregnancy sickness, at home, and then take part in a qualitative, semi‐structured telephone interview of approximately one hour to talk about how they experienced this writing process. Findings Thematic analysis identified several themes relating to the beneficial effects and uses of writing therapy and women's relational need to be heard and supported. Discussion This study supports previous findings about the beneficial effects of writing therapy and contributes new knowledge to the field of pregnancy sickness vis‐à‐vis the importance of emotional expression, emotional care and emotional recovery. The findings have important implications for healthcare professional practice.

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The effects of different themes of self‐disclosure on health outcomes in cancer patients—A meta‐analysis

Yao,

Li,

et al. 2023

Int J Psychol

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Self‐disclosure (SD) is a common psychological intervention that involves expressing the patient's feelings and thoughts. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of different themes of SD on cancer patients. We searched eight databases including PubMed, Cochrane Library Trials, Web of Science, CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, CNKI and Wanfang from inception to July 2022. Other sources included clinical data registers. The Cochrane Collaboration's tool was used to assess the risk of bias in the included studies. RevMan Analysis software 5.3 was used for data analysis. The protocol of this meta‐analysis has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42022339661). Twenty‐two RCTs studies were included. The pooled results demonstrated that self‐regulation self‐disclosure (SRD) had significant effects on patients' sleep quality, benefit‐finding, anxiety and quality of life (QOL), whereas emotional disclosure (ED) did not. Furthermore, enhanced self‐regulation self‐disclosure (ESRD) or cancer‐related self‐disclosure (CD) significantly improved patients' QOL, although health education self‐disclosure (HED) and positive self‐disclosure (PD) did not. Our study suggests that different themes of SD have varied effects on patients, but it remains unclear which themes to use at what point in time. Future research should investigate what themes of SD are adopted at different points in time and the duration of different periods.

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Expressive writing in early breast cancer survivors

Abstract: Expressive writing, focusing the instructions on writing about one's living and dealing with a diagnosis of breast cancer, is recommended for early breast cancer survivors as a feasible and easily implemented treatment approach to improve quality-of-life.

Cited by 51 publications

References 56 publications

Does therapeutic writing help people with long-term conditions? Systematic review, realist synthesis and economic considerations

Does therapeutic writing help people with long-term conditions? Systematic review, realist synthesis and economic considerations

Women's experiences of the therapeutic value of writing about pregnancy sickness

The effects of different themes of self‐disclosure on health outcomes in cancer patients—A meta‐analysis

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