Use of Expressive Writing in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Boston University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Treatments: Behavioral: Control Writing; Behavioral: Expressive Writing

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT01192672

4764-8

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to test whether disease-related expressive writing is effective in the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

Full description

Expressive writing involves writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events. Expressive writing, for as little as 3-5 sessions of 20 minutes, has been found to improve both physical and psychological health based on health outcome measures such as number of doctor's visits and hospital days, blood pressure control, lung and immune function, and pain. Given its simplicity, and obvious advantages in terms of cost efficiency, expressive writing appears to have great potential as a therapeutic tool or as a means of self-help, either alone or as an adjunct to traditional therapies. This modality has not been studied in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a common gastrointestinal condition, which is lacking well-defined etiology or treatments and is best understood in a biopsychosocial context.

Enrollment: 197 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Clinical diagnosis of Irritable Bowel syndrome

Exclusion criteria

• Non-English Speakers

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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197 participants in 3 patient groups

Expressive Writing

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects in the Intervention were instructed to write for 30-minute intervals for 4 consecutive days about their deepest thoughts and feelings related to their Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Expressive Writing

Control Writing

Active Comparator group

Description:

The participants were instructed to write for 30-minute intervals for 4 consecutive days about all of the actions they performed that day for a 24 hour period. The subjects were asked not to write about their feelings or thoughts related to these actions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Control Writing

Usual Care

No Intervention group

Description:

Subjects in this group did not receive an intervention. They filled out measures at baseline, 1 month, and 3 month follow-up time periods.