Expressive writing intervention and self-reported physical health out-comes - Results from a nationwide randomized controlled trial with breast cancer patients.

Jensen-Johansen MB, O'Toole MS, Christensen S, Valdimarsdottir H, Zakowski S, Bovbjerg DH, Jensen AB, Zachariae R

PloS one · January 1, 2018

Women who had recently completed treatment for primary breast cancer (n = 507) were randomly assigned to three 20 min. home-based writing exercises focusing on emotional disclosure of a distressing experience or a non-disclosing topic. Results revealed no group by time interaction effects for any outcomes. Moderation analyses showed that low alexithymic women in the intervention group showed larger decreases in GP telephone calls over time than both high alexithymic women and controls, and women writing about their own cancer showed a larger decrease than controls. The results are concordant with previous findings showing that expressive writing is unlikely to be a generally applicable intervention to improve health-related outcomes in cancer patients and survivors.

PMID: 29474441 · DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192729