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Abstract
Research on emotional (non-)expression is characterized by two facets; it has mainly focused on healthy individuals and it has failed to explore the relationships between the different concepts describing expression and non-expression. A meta-analysis was conducted in order to identify the differential effects of emotional expression and non-expression in patient samples. Results showed that neither expression, nor non-expression of emotions was related to perception of disease severity. Psychological distress increased in relation to emotional non-expression, but no effect was shown for emotional expression. Emotional non-expression was also related to adopting a helpless attitude towards the disease. The conceptual and methodological disparities identified in the retrieved studies undermined the validity of the emerged relationships. Reported changes in physical and psychological outcomes were related to the kind of research design, operationalization of (non-)expression and the clinical and psychological condition of the recruited samples. Implications for improving future research are discussed.
