Creative bibliotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a systematic review^*

* Calla Glavin is an officer in the U.S. Army. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

ABSTRACT

Creative bibliotherapy – or the guided reading of fiction or poetry – is used widely in mental healthcare settings. In the UK, partnerships between private organizations, libraries, and the NHS support reading groups for better mental health and social cohesion. In the USA, veterans’ reading support groups are common and private lifestyle consultancies offer services that match clients to books for general well-being. Considering the widespread employment of creative bibliotherapy, this systematic review was conducted to explore its effectiveness in reducing symptoms in adults with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both randomized and non-randomized trials were included in the extensive search but no high-quality controlled trials were found. Importantly, there is no evidence to suggest harms from the trial designs related to creative bibliotherapy and some low-quality and qualitative studies indicated this intervention may help PTSD symptoms. High quality randomized controlled trials should be conducted urgently.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative bibliotherapy
• fiction
• poetry
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• systematic review

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

* Calla Glavin is an officer in the U.S. Army. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of Oxford.