Written Disclosure Therapy for Anxiety and Stress in Patients With Chronic Lung Disease

NYU Langone Hospitals

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pulmonary Fibrosis; Chronic Lung Diseases; COPD

Treatments: Other: Disclosure Writing (Written Disclosure Therapy); Other: Neutral (Sham) Writing

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00911794

07300

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Written Disclosure Therapy (WDT) is of any benefit to patients with chronic lung diseases who are participating in pulmonary rehabilitation.

Full description

Chronic lung diseases are typically associated with impaired quality of life, stress, and anxiety. Written disclosure therapy (WDT) reduces stress in patients with a variety of chronic illnesses. We sought to determine if written disclosure therapy benefits patients with chronic lung diseases when it is added as a component to the pulmonary rehabilitation program.

Enrollment: 66 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 90 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of COPD or Pulmonary Fibrosis
• First time participants in Pulmonary Rehabilitation program

Exclusion criteria

• Dementia
• Prior significant psychiatric illness
• Inability to complete the questionnaires
• Inability cooperate with spirometry
• Inability or to participate in outpatient follow-up over the six-month

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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66 participants in 2 patient groups

Written Disclosure Therapy

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Disclosure Writing (Written Disclosure Therapy)

Controls

Sham Comparator group

Treatment:

Other: Neutral (Sham) Writing