%0 Journal Article
%T The WRITTEN-HEART study (expressive writing for heart healing): rationale and design of a randomized controlled clinical trial of expressive writing in coronary patients referred to residential cardiac rehabilitation
%A Gian Mauro Manzoni
%A Gianluca Castelnuovo
%A Enrico Molinari
%J Health and Quality of Life Outcomes
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1477-7525-9-51
%X The clinical effectiveness of a 2-week disease-related expressive writing procedure (writing about one's deepest thoughts and feelings regarding the experience with heart disease) compared with the standard writing task (writing about one's deepest thoughts and feelings about the most traumatic or negative event experienced in the life), a neutral writing condition (writing about the facts regarding heart disease and its treatment) and an empty control condition will be evaluated in a randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) with repeated follow-up measurements at 3, 6 and 12 months after discharge from CR. The primary outcome is health-related quality of life (SF-12). Secondary outcome measures are depression (BDI-II), anxiety (BAI) and post-traumatic growth (PTGI). Furthermore, the study will explore the moderating effects of coping styles, type D personality, perceived emotional support and participants' evaluative ratings of the writing interventions on the main experimental effects in order to identify sub-groups of patients showing different results.The WRITTEN-HEART study aims to explore and expand the frontiers of the expressive writing research enterprise by investigating the feasibility, safety and clinical efficacy of brief and cost-effective expressive writing interventions in patients with CHD referred to CR.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01253486The World Health Organization (WHO)'s statistics suggest that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one cause of mortality for all males and females, accounting for almost 30% of all global deaths [1].Despite this alarming scenario, the age-adjusted cardiovascular (CV) death rates have decreased almost 50% during the past 25 years [2]. Improved management of acute myocardial infarction (MI), earlier diagnostic procedures, advanced intervention techniques and especially the recognition and management of CV risk factors have resulted in an increasing number of CVD survivors [3]. However, such gains in survival r
%U http://www.hqlo.com/content/9/1/51