Participant experiences of a written emotional disclosure intervention in asthma

Stress has been associated with the exacerbation of asthma symptoms. Written emotional disclosure (WED) is a potentially cheap, low-risk intervention that may reduce stress and improve lung function in patients with asthma. The aims of this study were to explore asthma patients' subjective experiences of completing a WED exercise and the feasibility of conducting the intervention unsupervised in participants' homes. The data were collected during the pilot for a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of WED in adults with asthma. Thirty-six participants completed the writing exercises, and 28 participants (13 experimental subjects and 15 controls) provided free-text feedback on their experiences of completing the writing exercises. Framework analysis identified four themes in the participants' experiences: writing encouraged reflection; the challenge of the writing exercise; emotional reactions; and perceived impact. The feedback highlighted the need to control for previous experience of WED and time of day in any future studies exploring the effect of WED. The WED intervention was feasible to implement within the participants' homes without researcher supervision.