Involuntary narratives of decreasing anxiety in breast cancer patients: Study in Ukraine

Abstract

Background The main purpose of our study was to theoretically substantiate and practically verify the effectiveness of the developed method of reducing anxiety in breast cancer patients. Method We suggest that involuntary narratives, such as spontaneous, unprepared and non‐structural writing without rumination, help to express fears and concerns, thoughts and emotions and, as a result, decrease the level of anxiety. The respondents (49 female patients diagnosed with breast cancer at the Oncology Center of Ternopil, Ukraine, mean age 55.43 ± 11.31 years) were asked to write down (for 10 days) all their emotions and thoughts, which appeared in the morning immediately after awakening. They were asked to provide spontaneous thoughts without proper grammar, not observing lexical or spelling rules. Results Comparison of the level of state anxiety and differential emotions in the experimental and control groups before and after the experiment showed a statistically significant decrease in the level of anxiety and negative emotions in breast cancer patients. Conclusions The primary practical application of the study is the prospect of using involuntary narratives to decrease anxiety in breast cancer patients.