Written Emotional Disclosure Buffers the Effects of Social Constraints on Distress Among Cancer Patients.

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to examine whether written emotional disclosure would reduce distress among cancer patients and whether it would buffer the effects of high levels of social constraint (negative social responses to patients' expressions of emotion regarding their cancer) on distress. Cancer patients (N=104) were randomly assigned to write about their emotions regarding their cancer 20 min a day for 3 days or to write about a nonemotional topic. They completed questionnaires at baseline and 6 months postintervention. Results showed that written disclosure buffered the effects of social constraints on stress at the 6-month follow-up and that avoidance partly mediated these effects. The present data reinforce the notion that interventions should be tailored to patients' needs.

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

“…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.…”

“…In the Rosenberg et al 83 study, patients all had adenocarcinoma of the prostate (staging not given) and were being followed up after definitive local treatment (prostatectomy or radiotherapy) within the last 4 years. In Zakowski et al 84 all patients were diagnosed with prostate or gynaecological cancer (no further details supplied) and had completed treatment within the last 5 years. No further details were available for Arden-Close et al 80 and Pauley et al 82 In Milbury et al 81 participants were patients with newly diagnosed Arden-Close et al 80 was conducted in the UK, and the remaining studies were in the USA.…”

“…There were five studies [80][81][82][83][84] included in this section with different ICD-10 codes; however, all were of gynaecological or genitourinary cancers:…”

“…l C57: ovarian cancer -two studies 80,84 l C61: prostate cancer -two studies 83,84 l C62: testicular cancer -one study 82 l C64: renal cell carcinoma -one study. 81 …”

Dealing with a ‘hidden stressor’: emotional disclosure as a coping strategy to overcome the negative effects of motive incongruence on health

“…Thus, it works well for students who struggle to get adjusted to college (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990;Pennebaker & Francis, 1996), for individuals high in fear of failure (Langens & Schüler, 2005), for homeless people (deVicente, Munoz, Perez, & Santos-Olmo, 2004) and for many clinical populations, as for example, patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g. Bernard, Jackson, & Jones, 2006;Sloan, Marx, & Epstein, 2005), roimatoid arthritis (Kelley, Lumley, & Leisen, 1997), chronic pain (Norman, Lumley, Dooley, & Diamond, 2004) or cancer (Zakowski, Ramati, Morton, Johnston, & Flanigan, 2004).…”