Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program.

Petrie, Keith J., Booth, Roger J., Pennebaker, James W., Davison, Kathryn P.·1995·Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
DOI 10.1037//0022-006x.63.5.787

Abstract

This study investigated whether emotional expression of traumatic experiences influenced the immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program. Forty medical students who tested negative for hepatitis B antibodies were randomly assigned to write about personal traumatic events or control topics during 4 consecutive daily sessions. The day after completion of the writing, participants were given their first hepatitis B vaccination, with booster injections at 1 and 4 months after the writing. Blood was collected before each vaccination and at a 6-month follow-up. Compared with the control group, participants in the emotional expression group showed significantly higher antibody levels against hepatitis B at the 4 and 6-month follow-up periods. Other immune changes evident immediately after writing were significantly lower numbers of circulating T helper lymphocytes and basophils in the treatment group. The finding that a writing intervention influences immune response provides further support for a link between emotional disclosure and health.

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Cited by (34)

  1. Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process
    Pennebaker, James W. · 1997 · Psychological Science
  2. Psychological Resilience and Positive Emotional Granularity: Examining the Benefits of Positive Emotions on Coping and Health
    Tugade, Michele M., Fredrickson, Barbara L., Feldman Barrett, Lisa · 2004 · Journal of Personality
  3. Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis.
    Frattaroli, Joanne · 2006 · Psychological Bulletin
  4. Emotions, morbidity, and mortality: new perspectives from psychoneuroimmunology.
    Kiecolt-Glaser, Janice K., McGuire, Lynanne, Robles, Theodore F., Glaser, Ronald · 2002 · Annual Review of Psychology
  5. Linguistic predictors of adaptive bereavement
    Pennebaker, James W., Mayne, Tracy J., Francis, Martha E. · 1997 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0022-006x.63.5.787
The paper
Petrie, K. J., Booth, R. J., Pennebaker, J. W., & Davison, K. P. (1995). Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-006x.63.5.787

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.