Does Self-Compassion Expressive Writing Benefit People With an Ostomy? A Randomized Controlled Trial

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a self-compassion expressive writing activity could improve psychological well-being in people with an ostomy, as assessed by changes in body image distress, ostomy-specific quality of life (QOL), self-compassion, and dispositional disgust. Randomized controlled trial design was used. The sample comprised 175 English-speaking patients over 18 years of age with a fecal or urinary ostomy; all participants resided in Australia and New Zealand. All were recruited online between May and July 2019. Following completion of a baseline questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to complete either an online self-compassion expressive writing exercise (intervention group; n = 88; 50.29%) or a control expressive writing exercise (n = 87; 49.71%). Online questionnaires were completed 1-week and 1-month following completion of either expressive writing task. Intent-to-treat repeated-measure ANOVA analyses assessed benefits to self-compassion, body image distress, and ostomy-specific quality of life. Dispositional disgust sensitivity and propensity, as assessed by baseline scores on the Dispositional Disgust Sensitivity and Propensity Scale (DPSS), were assessed as moderators. Analyses revealed that younger people with an ostomy had poorer self-compassion, greater body image distress, and poorer ostomy-specific QOL than older people, and those who had lived with their ostomy for longer had lower body image distress and greater QOL. There were no significant main effects of writing condition on primary measures; however, individuals in the intervention condition with low dispositional disgust had greater self-compassion, greater ostomy-specific QOL, and lower body image distress than those with high dispositional disgust. Although expressive writing is a pragmatic and accessible intervention, our findings suggested that it was of benefit only to people with low dispositional disgust. Further work is required to establish an effective psychological tool for this under-researched population.