Does writing about the bereavement lessen grief following sudden, unintentional death?

Writing about traumatic events produces improvement in an array of areas in cluding physical and psychological functioning. To see if these improvement s extended to improved bereavement recovery after the accidental or homicid al death of a loved one, 64 undergraduates (51 women, 13 men) began, and 44 completed, a writing project. At pretest, they completed measures of depre ssion, anxiety, grief, impact, and nonroutine health visits. Then, they wer e randomly assigned to write about either the bereavement experience (profo und condition), or innocuous topics (trivial condition). They wrote for 15 minutes a day for four days, then completed the same measures a second time (posttest). Six weeks later, they were mailed the same measures again (fol low-up). A 2 (Condition: Profound versus Trivial) x 3(Time: Pre-, Post-, or Follow-up) MANOVA yielded a significant main effect for time, but no main effect for condition and no interaction. Follow-up ANOVAs indicated that, a cross conditions,from pretest to follow-up testing participants reported le ss anxiety and depression, less impact, greater grief recovery, but about t he same health center visits. A 2 (Condition) x 4(Writing Day) MANOVA and f ollow-up tests indicated that those in the Profound condition reported less subjective distress from Day I to Day 3, compared to those in the trivial condition. Combined with Kovac and Range (1999), present results suggest th at writing projects may be more beneficial to those experiencing the unique bereavement of suicidal death, rather than those experiencing the noninten tional death of a loved one by accident or homicide.