Writing About Disease: Effect on Rehabilitation?

NCT ID: NCT00251420

Last Updated: 2009-05-07

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 180 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2005-12-31
• Study Completion Date: 2007-12-31

Brief Summary

Therapeutic writing about one's emotions has been described previously (J Pennebaker: Emotions, disclosure and health. Am Psychol. Assoc 1995). The present project will compare the effects (if any) of writing about the emotional versus the physical consequences of lung disease on anxiety, perceived quality of life, and perceived health status.

Detailed Description

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients (age 35-70) and asthma patients (age 20-60) referred to a 4 weeks inpatient rehabilitation program - who agree to participate in the project - are randomly assigned to one of three conditions:

• Writing about emotional consequences of their disease before the program starts
• Writing about physical consequences of their disease before the program starts
• Not writing

All patients are measured (completing questionnaires at home) on: perceived quality of life, perceived health status and trait anxiety - 2 weeks before the program, 2 weeks after the program and 6 months after the program. FEV1 and 6 min walking distance are measured at the beginning and by the end of the program.

In addition to questionnaires, all patients are asked to:

• Write in their own words ( 2 weeks after) to evaluate their stay at the rehabilitation clinic; and
• Write in their own words (6 months after) about how the disease affects their life at that point.

Both quantitative and qualitative data will be used for analysis purposes.

Conditions

COPD; Asthma

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Interventions

writing about disease

writing about physical or emotional consequences of pulmonary disease

Intervention Type: PROCEDURE

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Clinical diagnosis of COPD (age between 35 and 70)
• Clinical diagnosis of asthma (age between 20 and 60)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 20 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 70 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

The norwegian association for heart and lung patients

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role: collaborator

LHL Helse

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Principal Investigators

Einar Haave, Cand Psychol

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

LHL Helse

Locations

Glittreklinikken

Hakadal, Akershus, Norway

Countries

Norway

Other Identifiers

G22-1

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id