Trial reportPloS one2018
Expressive writing intervention and self-reported physical health out-comes - Results from a nationwide randomized controlled trial with breast cancer patients.
Trial report in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Mind over Malignancy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Psychological Distress, Coping, and Therapeutic Interventions in Oncology.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Patient-Caregiver Dyad Perspectives on Participation in a Digital Storytelling Intervention: A Qualitative Approach.Transplantation and cellular therapy · 2023Trial
- Efficacy of Pennebaker's expressive writing intervention in reducing psychiatric symptoms among patients with first-time cancer diagnosis: a randomized clinical trial.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2019Trial
- A qualitative analysis of fear of cancer recurrence among Chinese nasopharyngeal cancer patients who are undergoing active treatment.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Expressive writing interventions in patients with cancer: A scoping literature review.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Moral Distress Events and Emotional Trajectories in Nursing Narratives during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The Effect of Emotional Disclosure by Writing on the Depression of Hemodialysis Patients in Iran: A Randomized Clinical Trial.Journal of caring sciences · 2021Article
- Writing cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2021Review
- Better Together: Long-term Behaviors and Perspectives after a Practitioner-Family Writing Intervention in Clinical Practice.The Permanente journal · 2021Article
- Linguistic Markers of the Emotion Elaboration Surrounding the Confinement Period in the Italian Epicenter of COVID-19 Outbreak.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The objective was to examine the effect of Expressive Writing Intervention (EWI) on self-reported physical symptoms and healthcare utilization in a nationwide randomized controlled trial with Danish women treated for primary breast cancer, and to explore participant characteristics related to emotion regulation as possible moderators of the effect. Women who had recently completed treatment for primary breast cancer (n = 507) were randomly assigned to three 20 min. home-based writing exercises, one week apart, focusing on emotional disclosure (EWI) of a distressing experience (their cancer or a non-cancer topic) or a non-disclosing topic (control). Outcomes were self-reported physical symptoms and healthcare utilization (visits and telephone contacts with GP) 3 and 9 months post-intervention. Potential moderators were repressive coping, alexithymia, rumination, social constraints, and writing topic. Results revealed no group by time interaction effects for any outcomes. Moderation analyses showed that 1) low alexithymic women in the EWI group showed larger decreases in GP telephone calls over time than both high alexithymic women and controls and 2) women in the EWI group writing about their own cancer, but not women writing about other topics, showed a larger decrease than controls. The results from this large randomized trial are concordant with previous findings showing that EWI is unlikely to be a generally applicable intervention to improve health-related outcomes in cancer patients and cancer survivors. However, written disclosure might have a beneficial impact for individuals who write about their own cancer, as well as for those low in alexithymia.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.