Exploring psychological distress and expressive writing in Chinese breast cancer patients

Wu, Yanni

Abstract

Breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy experience intense psychological distress and emotional suppression, which lowers the survivors’ quality of life and impacts their adherence to treatment. Given the insufficient identification and intervention of psychological distress and the specific traditional cultural beliefs and emotional reactions of Chinese breast cancer patients, there is an overwhelming need for exploring the current situation and providing culturally-appropriate psychosocial support that is congruent with the beliefs and values of the target group. Expressive writing, a convenient and culturally sensitive intervention, still needs much more exploration to identify factors that may moderate the effects of such writing exercises in breast cancer patients; thus, helping clinicians to identify the individuals most likely to benefit from expressive writing in China.
This portfolio of six published papers and fifteen supporting publications makes a unique contribution to existing knowledge by exploring psychological distress in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, and evaluating the effects of expressive writing on health outcomes in this population, particularly in the Chinese
context.
Collectively, this work provides a body of knowledge which suggest that there was relatively low concordance between breast cancer patients’ reports and caregivers’ perceptions of psychological distress. Family caregivers tended to underestimate breast cancer patients’ psychological distress. In addition, given the non-lasting momentum of expressive writing that we have identified in the
meta-analysis, this work makes a unique contribution to knowledge by first confirmation that writing dosage does not moderate the effects of expressive writing on breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Furthermore, this is the first study to provide evidence that the level of emotional expressivity and the pattern of
affective word use could be factors that moderate the effects of expressive writing on the quality of life of breast cancer patients. These results have expanded our knowledge on the expressive writing in patients with breast cancer.

Citation

Wu, Y. (2023). Exploring psychological distress and expressive writing in Chinese breast cancer patients. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: May 31, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 25, 2024
• Award Date: Jun 2, 2023