Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2010 Jul;29(4):460-6.
doi: 10.1037/a0020153.

A randomized controlled trial of emotionally expressive writing for women with metastatic breast cancer

Carissa A Low  1 , Annette L Stanton, Julienne E Bower, Lauren Gyllenhammer
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

A randomized controlled trial of emotionally expressive writing for women with metastatic breast cancer

Carissa A Low et al. Health Psychol. 2010 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: To test the effects of emotionally expressive writing in a randomized controlled trial of metastatic breast cancer patients and to determine whether effects of the intervention varied as a function of perceived social support or time since metastatic diagnosis.

Design: Women (N = 62) living with Stage IV breast cancer were randomly assigned to write about cancer-related emotions (EMO; n = 31) or the facts of their diagnosis and treatment (CTL; n = 31). Participants wrote at home for four 20-min sessions within a 3-week interval.

Main outcome measures: Depressive symptoms, cancer-related intrusive thoughts, somatic symptoms, and sleep quality at 3 months postintervention.

Results: No significant main effects of experimental condition were observed. A significant condition x social support interaction emerged on intrusive thoughts; EMO writing was associated with reduced intrusive thoughts for women reporting low emotional support (eta2 = .15). Significant condition x time since metastatic diagnosis interactions were also observed for somatic symptoms and sleep disturbances. Relative to CTL, EMO participants who were more recently diagnosed had fewer somatic symptoms (eta2 = .10), whereas EMO participants with longer diagnosis duration exhibited increases in sleep disturbances (eta2 = .09).

Conclusion: Although there was no main effect of expressive writing on health among the current metastatic breast cancer sample, expressive writing may be beneficial for a subset of metastatic patients (including women with low levels of emotional support or who have been recently diagnosed) and contraindicated for others (i.e., those who have been living with the diagnosis for years).

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Significant interaction of experimental condition and emotional support (calculated as M ± SD) on IES-Intrusion scores at 3-month follow-up.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Significant interaction of experimental condition and months since metastatic diagnosis (calculated as M ± SD) on somatic symptom scores at 3-month follow-up.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Significant interaction of experimental condition and months since metastatic diagnosis (calculated as M ± SD) on PSQI scores at 3-month follow-up.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aiken LS, West SG. Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage; 1991.
    1. Alferi SM, Carver CS, Antoni MH, Weiss S, Duran RE. An exploratory study of social support, distress, and life disruption among low-income Hispanic women under treatment for breast cancer. Health Psychology. 2001;20:41–46. - PubMed
    1. American Cancer Society. Breast cancer facts & figures 2005–2006. Atlanta: American Cancer Society; 2006.
    1. Bishop MM, Lee G, Stanton AL, Wingard JR. A Phase I study of telephone-based expressive writing for spouse/partner caregivers of HSCT survivors. Paper presented at the NCI/ACS Cancer Survivorship Research Conference; Washington, DC. 2004.
    1. Butler LD, Koopman C, Classen C, Spiegel D. Traumatic stress, life events, and emotional support in women with metastatic breast cancer: Cancer-related traumatic stress symptoms associated with past and current stressors. Health Psychology. 1999;18:555–560. - PubMed

Publication types