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Fuat AYDOĞDU

Fuat AYDOĞDU

Expert Psychological Counselor

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Effects of Expressive Writing on Well-being: A Meta-analysis

Işıl Tekin

Sistematik Derlemeler ve Meta Analiz Volume 5 Issue 3 30 October 2023 Pages 1290-1310 10.47793/hp.1353331
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Abstract

Expressive writing was developed based on the idea that individuals’ expressing their emotions and thoughts about the experiences that affect them in writing can be therapeutic, and its effectiveness has been examined in many studies. In the literature, many studies show that expressive writing is effective on physical and psychological health, yet some others show that it is not effective. In the current study, a meta-analysis is conducted to evaluate the results in the literature together to reach more consistent and exploratory results regarding the effect of expressive writing. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of expressive writing on well-being through a meta-analysis based on experimental research. For this purpose, 11 research studies accessed through online database searches were included in the study. There were 764 participants in the studies chosen. As a result of the meta-analysis, the estimated common effect size was calculated as 0.229 Hedges’ g value. This result indicates that expressive writing has a small positive effect on well-being. The publication bias analyses revealed that there was no publication bias regarding the effect’s validity.

Keywords

expressive writing written disclosure well-being meta-analysis
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