Effects of disclosure of traumatic events on illness behavior among psychiatric prison inmates

To assess the health effects of writing about traumatic events in a clinica l population, 98 psychiatric prison inmates were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings surrounding upsetting experiences (trauma writing condition). write about trivial topics (trivial writing control), or go about their da ily routine without writing: (no-writing control). Both groups wrote for 20 min per day for 3 consecutive days. Participants in the trauma condition r eported experiencing more physical symptoms subsequent to the intervention relative to those in the: other conditions, Despite this, controlling for p rewriting infirmary visits, sex offenders in the trauma writing condition d ecreased their postwriting infirmary visits. These results are congruent wi th predictions based on stigmatization and inhibition.