Feasibility and Participant Experiences of a Written Emotional Disclosure Intervention for Parental Caregivers of People with Psychosis

Abstract

Caregivers are at increased risk of poor health but often cannot engage with health care because of practical constraints. Writing therapies such as written emotional disclosure (WED) might represent an accessible therapy for this population. This study aimed to determine whether WED is a suitable therapy for caregivers of people with psychosis. Data were collected from a feasibility trial comparing WED with a neutral writing task. Twenty four participants completed writing tasks; the content was analysed using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) programme. Twenty one participants provided feedback about the writing task, and data were analysed using Burnard's thematic content analysis. WED was feasible to implement in caregivers of people with psychosis. All participants ascribed benefit to writing tasks, the majority describing a cathartic effect, enjoying time to oneself or distraction from caregiving. Quantitative comparison indicated differences in emotional content between intervention and control writing. However, qualitative analysis showed that control participants found it challenging to write neutrally, the majority citing the care-recipient in their writing. Community-based WED is a feasible therapy for caregivers of people with psychosis. The need for refinement of the control writing task for use in caregivers is discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Clinical effectiveness of a web-based peer-supported self-management intervention for relatives of people with psychosis or bipolar (REACT): online, observer-blind, randomised controlled superiority trial

“…Mean support scores at baseline were below 20 in each group (possible range 0-51, higher scores indicate greater support). Although there are no clinical thresholds for CWS, wellbeing and support scores were very low compared to other studies of groups of relatives of people with psychosis [6,51,52].…”

Does written emotional disclosure improve the psychological and physical health of caregivers? A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Eight studies measured seven outcomes and supplied data suitable for meta-analysis (Ashley, O'Connor, & Jones, 2011;Barry & Singer, 2001; Barton & Jackson, 2008;Duncan et al, 2007;Jones et al, 2015;Mackenzie, Wiprzycka, Hasher, & Goldstein, 2007;Martino, Freda, & Camera, 2013;Schwartz & Drotar, 2004). There were five studies which measured four outcomes that could not be pooled due to insufficient detail or only a single study reported on that outcome (Schwartz & Drotar, 2004;Whitney & Smith, 2014;Zauszniewski, Musil, Burant, & Au, 2014;Martino, Freda, & Camera, 2013;Jones et al, 2015). Attempts to obtain extra information about these studies were unsuccessful as authors were uncontactable or unable to provide the required information.…”

“…Nine of the studies were published between 2001 and 2014, and one study was in press (Jones et al, 2015). Follow up periods varied between the immediate post-intervention assessment and six months.…”

“…one in Canada (Mackenzie et al, 2007), Israel (Duncan et al, 2007) and Italy (Martino et al, 2013). Six studies had one intervention group and one control group (Barry & Singer, 2001; Barton & Jackson, 2008;Jones et al, 2015;Martino et al, 2013;Schwartz & Drotar, 2004;Whitney & Smith, 2014), two studies had two intervention groups and one control group (Ashley et al, 2011;Mackenzie et al, 2007), and one study had four intervention groups and one control group (Zauszniewski et al, 2014). In one study the same group acted as both control and intervention (Duncan et al, 2007) (Table 1).…”

“…Four studies trialled WED in caregivers of adults (Ashley et al, 2011;Barton & Jackson, 2008;Jones et al, 2015;Mackenzie et al, 2007) and the other six were conducted in caregivers of babies or children (Barry & Singer, 2001;Duncan et al, 2007;Martino et al, 2013;Schwartz & Drotar, 2004;Whitney & Smith, 2014;Zauszniewski et al, 2014). Caregivers of adults were parents, spouses, children or sisters, and they were caring for individuals with a range of mental and physical problems, such as dementia, cognitive impairment, physical disability, cancer (Ashley et al, 2011;Mackenzie et al, 2007), and psychosis (Barton & Jackson, 2008;Jones et al, 2015). Caregivers of children were predominantly biological parents (in particular mothers) as well as adopted mothers, aunts and grandmothers.…”