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The benefits of expressive writing among newly diagnosed mainland Chinese breast cancer patients

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Abstract

The study aimed to evaluate the effects of an expressive writing intervention on quality of life (QoL) among mainland Chinese breast cancer patients. A total of 118 Chinese breast cancer patients were randomly assigned to one of four groups: a cancer-facts writing condition (CTL group), an emotional disclosure writing condition (EMO group), a self-regulation writing condition (SR group), or a neutral control condition with no writing tasks (CON group). QoL was assessed by FACT-B at baseline, 3-, and 6-month follow-ups. A repeated measure analysis of variance revealed significant effects of time (F = 13.9, P < 0.001, η2 = 0.20) and the time × group interaction (F = 3.5, P < 0.01, η2 = 0.08) on QoL. Residualized change models showed that the CTL, EMO and SR groups reported higher levels of QoL than the CON group at the 6-month follow-up. The EMO group had a higher level of QoL than the SR group. The CTL group had higher level of physical well-being compared to the SR group. Mainland Chinese breast cancer patients shortly after diagnosis benefit from expressive writing. They benefited more from cancer-facts and emotional disclosure compared to self-regulation. The study indicated that the impact of expressive writing may differ due to stage of cancer survivorship, social, and cultural context.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. ZR2016GM05), Health and Family Planning Commission of Shandong Province (Grant No. 2017WS852), Science and Technology Development Plan of Weifang (Grant No. 2015WS009) and Shandong Education Department (Grant No. J17RA137). We acknowledge Dr. Lilian Shin for proofreading this manuscript and anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Nursing, Weifang Medical University, Wei Fang, China

    Li-li Ji

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, USA

    Qian Lu

  3. Department of Health Disparities Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA

    Qian Lu

  4. Department of Breast Surgery, Weifang People’s Hospital, Wei Fang, China

    Li-juan Wang, Xiang-lian Sun & Hui-dong Wang

  5. Department of Psychology, Weifang Medical University, Wei Fang, China

    Bing-xue Han, Yu-feng Ma & Guo-hua Lu

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  1. Li-li Ji
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  2. Qian Lu
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  3. Li-juan Wang
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  4. Xiang-lian Sun
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  5. Hui-dong Wang
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Correspondence to Qian Lu or Guo-hua Lu.

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Conflict of interest

Li-li Ji, Qian Lu, Li-juan Wang, Xiang-lian Sun, Hui-dong Wang, Bing-xue Han, Yu-feng Ma and Guo-hua Lu declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Ji, Ll., Lu, Q., Wang, Lj. et al. The benefits of expressive writing among newly diagnosed mainland Chinese breast cancer patients. J Behav Med 43, 468–478 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-019-00127-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-019-00127-z

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