title: Effects of disclosure of traumatic events on illness behavior among psychiatric prison inmates.
abstract: To assess the health effects of writing about traumatic events in a clinical population, 98 psychiatric prison inmates were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings surrounding upsetting experiences (trauma writing condition), write about trivial topics (trivial writing control), or go about their daily routine without writing (no-writing control). Both writing groups wrote for 20 min per day for 3 consecutive days. Participants in the trauma condition reported experiencing more physical symptoms subsequent to the intervention relative to those in the other conditions. Despite this, controlling for prewriting infirmary visits, sex offenders in the trauma writing condition decreased their postwriting infirmary visits. These results are congruent with predictions based on stigmatization and inhibition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.forename: W E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Beal
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Seagal
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Pennebaker
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D011939:Mental Recall; D015146:Midwestern United States; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D014956:Writing