title: Effects of writing about emotions versus goals on psychological and physical health among third-year medical students.
abstract: A randomized, controlled trial compared writing about emotional topics (EMO) to writing about goals as the "best possible self" (BPS; after King, 2001) and evaluated emotional approach coping, i.e., efforts to cope through processing and expressing emotion, as a moderator of writing effects on psychological and physical health in 64 third-year medical students. In participants with higher baseline hostility, the EMO condition was associated with less hostility at 3 months compared to the BPS and control conditions. Emotional processing (EP) and emotional expression (EE) moderated the effect of experimental condition on depressive symptoms at 3 months; high EP/EE participants reported fewer depressive symptoms in the EMO condition, whereas low EP/EE individuals reported fewer depressive symptoms in the BPS condition compared to the EMO and control conditions. A moderating effect of EP on physical health was also identified, such that low EP individuals who wrote about goals (BPS) had fewer health care visits at 3 months compared to low EP participants in the EMO and control conditions.
authors.affiliation: University of Kansas, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Austenfeld
authors.forename: Anthony M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Paolo
authors.forename: Annette L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Stanton
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000739:Anecdotes as Topic; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D012650:Self Disclosure; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D014956:Writing