NCT01192672

Use of Expressive Writing in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 197 (actual)
• Sponsor: Boston University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

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

Detailed 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.

Conditions

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Expressive Writing	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.
BEHAVIORAL	Control Writing	Subjects were asked to write about the actions they performed during the last 24 hours. They were asked not to write about their feelings or thoughts related to these actions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2008-09-01
• Primary completion: 2010-09-01
• Completion: 2010-11-01
• First posted: 2010-09-01
• Last updated: 2017-03-15