NCT00303147

Cognitive and Health Benefits of Expressive Writing for Family Caregivers Under Stress

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 120 (planned)
• Sponsor: University of Toronto · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if expressive writing is an effective intervention for reducing stress, enhancing cognition, and improving quality of life for caregivers of older adults with dementia

Detailed description

A significant and growing need exists to support caregivers of older adults with dementia, including methods of support that are easily implemented and targeted at caregivers who can not access multicomponent interventions. The current intervention examines the efficacy of one such approach: expressive writing (EW). We are examining the efficacy of EW, in terms of its ability to reduce stress, enhance cognition, and improve well-being, by comparing it to two control conditions: objective writing about how caregivers spend their time (time management; TM) and objective writing about non-personal historical events (history writing; HW).

Conditions

• Stress, Psychological
• Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Expressive Writing

Timeline

• Start date: 2003-05-01
• Completion: 2005-07-01
• First posted: 2006-03-15
• Last updated: 2006-03-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada