Expressive Writing in Breast Cancer - The ExBRAC Trial

The study is a randomized trial designed to examine whether an "expressive writing" intervention can affect the quality of life in patients recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The method "expressive writing" consists of writing about the breast cancer or other related subjects during 20 minutes, once a week for four consecutive weeks. The impact on quality of life will be assessed by having participants complete questionnaires at three different time points during the study. The questionnaire will be developed using a clinimetric approach, based on semi-structured interviews with breast cancer patients. The themes emerging from these interviews will be used to formulate the questions. Additionally, well-known quality-of-life measurement instruments and registry data with clinically relevant information-such as tumor stage and treatment-will be incorporated.