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Something To Hang My Life On: The Health Benefits Of Writing Poetry For People With Serious Illnesses, Carolyn Rickett, Cedric Greive, Jill Gordon

Carolyn Rickett

Objective: We aimed to explore the effect of a poetry writing program for people who had experienced a serious illness. Method: For this study we randomly assigned 28 volunteer participants with a history of serious illness, usually cancer, to one of two poetry writing workshops. Each group met weekly for 2 hours for 8 weeks. The second group was wait-listed to enable comparison between the two groups. We used the Kessler-10, a measure of wellbeing, before and after the workshops and also interviewed the participants at these times. Results: Participants responded enthusiastically and each group demonstrated an increase in wellbeing …