The Impact of Creative Writing on Patients With Chronic Pain

Aims and objectives Creative writing has already been utilized within the context of care and rehabilitation of patients suffering from various mental and physical conditions, yielding positive outcomes. The aim of this study is to examine whether and how the psychosomatic state of chronic pain patients is affected by their engagement with creative writing. Methodological design The study employed a non-randomized design and used a longitudinal controlled quasi-experimental design with two parallel groups assessed at three timepoints: pre-intervention (T1), mid-intervention (T2), and post-intervention (T3). Ethical issues and approval Participants provided written informed consent, and the study was approved by the Scientific Council of the University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis (approval number: 50535/18-10-2023). Research methods and interventions This controlled longitudinal quasi-experimental study included 120 adults with chronic pain, allocated to an intervention group (n = 60) or a control group (n = 60), and compared the effects of a creative writing intervention against a waitlist control on self-assessed pain severity, quality of life, anxiety, and self-rated health, assessed at three timepoints (T1 = baseline; T2 = mid-point; T3 = post-intervention). Results Over an observation period of two weeks, the control group showed near-zero change on every outcome: pain, anxiety, functional impairment, and health. The intervention group, by contrast, showed a progressive improvement in self-rated health and a meaningful decrease in anxiety, while pain severity and functional impairment remained broadly stable. Conclusions The intervention was associated with significant reductions in anxiety and depression and meaningful improvements in self-rated health by the end of the observation period. Pain severity itself did not change significantly at the group level, but the way pain related to other aspects of quality of life differed markedly between the two groups.