Effects of writing about stressful experiences on symptom reduction in patients with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis: A randomized trial.

Examined whether writing about stressful experiences affects objective measures of disease status in patients with chronic asthma or rheumatoid arthritis (RA). 107 Ss (58 with asthma, 49 with RA) completed the intervention condition, in which they were asked to write about the most stressful experience they had ever undergone; 41 controls (22 with asthma, 19 with RA) were asked to write about an emotionally neutral topic. Ss wrote for 20 min on 3 consecutive days a week; symptoms were assessed at baseline, 2 wks, 2 mo, and 4 mo after writing. Results showed that, across both diseases, experimental group Ss had greater rates of symptom improvement and lesser rates of worsening on objective measures of health than the control Ss. There were also clinically significant differences in observed changes in health status between experimental and control Ss, with approximately 47% of experimental patients vs 24% of controls meeting criteria for clinically relevant improvement. Time course analysis of changes in primary outcomes showed that asthmatic patients in the experimental group improved within 2 wks, whereas change for the RA patients was not evident until the 4-mo assessment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)