Write It Out: Examining Recreational Youth Sport Parent Emotions Through an Expressive Writing Exercise

Youth sport parents experience an array of emotions as part of their child’s youth sport experience. This may include emotions related to watching their child play, supporting their child’s emotions, or simply related to daily parenting responsibilities. This research examined youth sport parent emotions through an expressive writing exercise. Twelve parents completed a total of 32 expressive writing exercises. In each exercise, parents were asked to write about their emotions as a youth sport parent. Quantitative analysis with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015) software and qualitative thematic analysis were employed to analyze writings. Results indicate that though parents experienced both positive and negative emotions, negative emotions were most common and salient. Thematic analysis resulted in six themes, including one theme related to positive emotions (happiness for child experience), and five themes related to negative emotions: 1) general stress and negativity, 2) responsibilities, 3) role as parent, 4) coach, and 5) performance. Results also lead to practical implications for park and recreation administrators. First, as substantial stress is related to the time and financial responsibilities associated with sport parenting, organizations may wish to seek ways to support parents including through scholarship funds, and facilitating communication and duty sharing among parents. Parent education programs may also be a way to help parents navigate their own emotions related to parenting roles. Coaches were also a source of negative emotions for parents, though not always for the same reasons. Youth sport organizations can facilitate coach-parent communication to ensure that parent-coach goals are aligned, and provide training for coaches in both sport-specific skills and positive youth development. In addition to facilitating coach-parent communication, organizations may also encourage child-parent communication related to goals. This could include email communications with exercises designed to encourage specific conversations about goals of youth sport participation. Each of these implications is tied directly to negative emotions expressed by parents as part of this research. Assisting parents with these emotions will improve the experience for both the parent and will likely enable the youth participant to have a more positive experience as well.

Expressive Multilingual Writing

The purpose of this chapter reveals the healing power of writing at times of stress, turmoil, and crisis from multilingual perspectives. Writing relieves emotional chaos, stress, and even physical pain as evidenced by research. Multilingual writing is a process-based, complicated act that requires a series of intellectual stages to be developed as a skill. In parallel to this rationale, multilingual learners can generate creative spaces for their well-being and growth by using writing as a skill to express their emotions for easing feelings related to stress, turmoil, and crisis. This chapter encourages and models emotional or expressive writing as an innovative method to use in educational and health settings to allow creating novel experiences into language learning phases.

Implementation of an Expressive Writing Intervention for Adolescents during Inpatient Psychiatric Hospitalization

BACKGROUND: Given the high rates of mental health concerns and communication difficulties for adolescents a treatment intervention to allow for effective expression may be therapeutic. One of the leading writing practices is Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing (EW) intervention. EW involves individuals writing about their feelings and thoughts regarding negative life experiences. Benefits of EW include a reduction of psychological symptoms and doctor visits, and better adjustment. OBJECTIVE: To examine the role of using EW and creative writing as a group intervention for youth admitted to an inpatient psychiatric hospital (IPH) METHODS: The current study evaluated participant engagement in a 3-day EW activity facilitated by nurses and graduate students on the IPH unit under the supervision of the IPH unit nurse manager and course instructor. Participants included 23 youth between 12- and 18-years-old RESULTS: Of the 23 participants 49.69% discussed vivid descriptions of illness, 24.5% discussed negative emotions, 20.25% included casual explanation, 5.52% discussed polarized view, and 16.56% discussed their desires, wishes, and goals. The response rate of clinician’s review of the EW content included 58% of clinician’s coding was on the patient’s current state, 24% was on causal explanations, and 18% was on treatment options. CONCLUSION: The current EW intervention facilitated by nursing staff and graduate students in an IPH was found to be engaged in by participants and provide an additional therapeutic resource to participants. EW may foster patient communication with staff about their functioning, mental health concerns, and treatment needs.

Improving Resilience, Optimism, Purpose, and Loneliness Among Older Adults

Aging Strong 2020 was developed to promote health and well-being and increase resilience by focusing on the pillars of enhanced purpose in life, social connectedness, and optimism. A series of eight interventions over three years tested the feasibility of enhancing these pillars. Interventions included: 1) An expressive writing program, 2) Animatronic pets, 3) A telephonic reminiscent program, 4) An online self-compassion mindfulness program, 5) A technology-based behavior change tool, 6) An online and workbook tool for purpose, 7) An online happiness program, and 8) A peer-to-peer support program. Each program demonstrated efficacy dependent on the pillar targeted and the population sampled. Overall, some improvement was found among participants in resilience (47%), purpose (49%), optimism (44%), and loneliness (48%). Further, participant satisfaction improved in each program with Net Promoter Scores increasing between 7-19 points. Results demonstrate that Aging Strong 2020 was successful, contributing to a holistic model of healthy aging.

The perk of writing: How expressive writing reduces depressive symptoms

<span lang="EN-MY">This study aimed to examine types of expressive writing and the underlying themes that will lead to the reduction of depression symptoms. We hypothesized that positive experience writing will significantly reduce depressive symptoms as compared to other types of expressive writing. This study recruited 45 young adults (17 men, 28 women) between 20 and 28 years old to perform online expressive writing for a four-week period and fill in the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) before and after the treatment. Our findings suggested that positive expressive writing led to a significantly greater reduction of depressive symptoms as compared to other types of expressive writing. The qualitative analysis showed that there are eight common themes in positive writing that might contribute to the reduction of symptoms: companionship, mattering, gratitude, positive emotions, energetic, motivation, relaxation, and delicious food. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed.</span>

The effectiveness of psychological support interventions for those exposed to mass infectious disease outbreaks: a systematic review

Background Mass outbreaks such as pandemics are associated with mental health problems requiring effective psychological interventions. Although several forms of psychological interventions may be advocated or used, some may lack strong evidence of efficacy and some may not have been evaluated in mass infectious disease outbreaks. This paper reports a systematic review of published studies (PROSPERO CRD:42020182094. Registered: 24.04.2020) examining the types and effectiveness of psychological support interventions for the general population and healthcare workers exposed to mass infectious disease outbreaks. Methods A systematic review was conducted. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) were identified through searches of electronic databases: Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), PsycINFO (EBSCO) and the Cochrane Library Database from inception to 06.05.2021 using an agreed search strategy. Studies were included if they assessed the effectiveness of interventions providing psychological support to the general population and / or healthcare workers exposed to mass infectious disease outbreaks. Studies were excluded if they focused on man-made or natural disasters or if they included armed forces, police, fire-fighters or coastguards. Results Twenty-two RCTs were included after screening. Various psychological interventions have been used: therapist-guided therapy (n = 1); online counselling (n = 1); ‘Emotional Freedom Techniques’ (n = 1); mobile phone apps (n = 2); brief crisis intervention (n = 1); psychological-behavioural intervention (n = 1); Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (n = 3); progressive muscle relaxation (n = 2); emotional-based directed drawing (n = 1); psycho-educational debriefing (n = 1); guided imagery (n = 1); Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (n = 1); expressive writing (n = 2); tailored intervention for patients with a chronic medical conditions (n = 1); community health workers (n = 1); self-guided psychological intervention (n = 1), and a digital behaviour change intervention (n = 1). Meta-analyses showed that psychological interventions had a statistically significant benefit in managing depression (Standardised Mean Difference [SMD]: -0.40; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: − 0.76 to − 0.03), and anxiety (SMD: -0.72; 95% CI: − 1.03 to − 0.40). The effect on stress was equivocal (SMD: 0.16; 95% CI: − 0.19 to 0.51). The heterogeneity of studies, studies’ high risk of bias, and the lack of available evidence means uncertainty remains. Conclusions Further RCTs and intervention studies involving representative study populations are needed to inform the development of targeted and tailored psychological interventions for those exposed to mass infectious disease outbreaks.

Effects of family-based dignity intervention and expressive writing on anticipatory grief of family caregivers of patients with cancer: a study protocol for a four-arm randomized controlled trial and a qualitative process evaluation

Background Family caregivers of dying cancer patients are affected by grief experiences and bereavement complications. Several approaches such as psycho-emotional care and an increase in spirituality have been suggested to diminish these complications. However, the knowledge about the effects of family-based dignity intervention and expressive writing on anticipatory grief in family caregivers of dying cancer patients is limited. This is a study protocol describing a hospital-based mixed-methods study on the effects of family-based dignity intervention and expressive writing on anticipatory grief in family caregivers of dying cancer patients. Methods This mixed-methods study will be done in an embedded explanatory design with two quantitative and qualitative phases. In the first phase (quantitative), a randomized clinical trial will be done, in which 200 family caregivers of dying cancer patients will be randomly assigned to one of the four groups: family-based single dignity intervention (group 1), expressive writing intervention (group 2), combined family-based single dignity intervention and expressive writing (group 3), and control (group 4). At baseline, 1 week and 2 weeks after the interventions, anticipatory grief will be assessed by a 13-item anticipatory grief scale. After the quantitative phase, the qualitative phase will be conducted through the conventional content analysis approach of Granheim and Lundman, in which an individual semi-structured interview will be taken from participants in the first phase to collect data on their experiences on interventions. Finally, data from the quantitative and qualitative phases will be analyzed and discussed. Discussion Family caregivers of dying cancer patients usually experience depression, anxiety, and psychological distress due to isolation and inadequate social support. Psychological interventions such as dignity and expressive writing interventions may help caregivers to obtain a better understanding of themselves and to increase their abilities to cope with caregiving difficulties. Therefore, there is a need for a comprehensive study confirming the effects of mentioned interventions on family caregivers of dying cancer patients. Trial registration Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (www.irct.ir) identifier: IRCT20210111050010N1. Date of trial registration: Feb 6, 2021. This is the first version of this protocol.

Common grammatical errors in the writing of high school students in Jordan: الأخطاء النحويَّة الشَّائعة في التَّعبير الكتابيِّ لَدى طالبات الثَّانويَّة العامَّة في الأردن

The aim of the research is to identify the common grammatical errors in the written expression of high school students in Jordan, and to identify the level that enables the students to employ grammatical skills in their writing. The sample of the study consisted of (42) high school students who were assigned to write an expressive topic in about (150) words in two topics that were identified by the researcher, and after the students ’papers were corrected and the grammatical errors were classified in their writings, the results of the research showed that the number of types of errors The grammatical expression in the written expression of high school students totaled (58) grammatical errors, the percentage of those errors ranged between (5.17% - 18.97%) and the type of error (the syntax of the plural of the peaceful masculine) came in the first place, as the number of this error reached (11) errors. With percentages amounting to (18.97), and the error came in (the sentence of Anna and her sisters) with a frequency of (10) occurrences with a percentage of (17.24%), followed by the error in (Kana's sentence and its sisters) with a frequency of (9) iterations and a percentage of (15.52) The error in (the parsing of al-Muthanna) came in fourth place with (8) iterations with a percentage of (13.79%), followed by the error in (number and count) with a frequency of (7) errors with a percentage of (12.07%), followed by a mistake (Assert the present tense verb ineffective) enumerates (6) iterations with a percentage of (10.34%), followed by a mistake (the parsing of the five verbs) after occurrences of (4) occurrences and a percentage of (6.90%), and the error in (parsing the five names) came in the last place with a number of (3) occurrences and a percentage of (5.17%). The results also showed that the standard percentages of the types of grammatical errors common in written expression among high school students ranged between (5.17% - 18.97%), all of which were less than (40%), which indicates that high school students have a good level of employing grammar skills. needed for written expression. The researcher made a number of recommendations, the most important of which are: teachers' training for students from the first basic grades on expressive writing situations, so that they get used to correctly formulating the sentence. and accustom students to reading and reading so that the circle of their culture expands and they have a linguistic wealth that helps them to write expressively.