No matter the circumstance, being hospitalized is frightening. It is a shocking disruption of daily routines and a barrier to the outside world. It is anxiety-inducing, draining, and stressful all at the same time. In fact, hospitalization is proven to exacerbate negative emotions and augment anxiety and depression in patients [1].

But poetry can help reduce the emotional and psychological effects of hospitalization/sickness. With poetry, patients can express their experiences often better than with plain words.

A 2021 study found that providing opportunities for child patients to read and write poetry reduced their levels of fear, sadness, anger, and worry [2]. Other studies have found that poetry has given patients a vehicle for “enhanced life review, often on themes otherwise difficult to access” and “deepened our ability to see out patients as creative, intellectual, and larger than their medical illness” [3].

[1]: Applied Nursing Research (2021)

[2]: American Academy of Pediatrics (2021)

[3]: National Library of medicine (2021)

Not only is the process of creative expression, writing poetry also inspires patients to have their voices heard.

Poems for Patients is on a mission to give those who are suffering a place to be loved, heard, and supported. Whether it be through writing a poem, joining our writing or design team, or simply spreading the world to others, you can make a difference.

For anyone inspired to write a poem, please do not feel the need to achieve effective literary technique, ie. rhyme, creative structure, etc. All we ask for is your voice in its most authentic form. Short messages, words of reflection, letters, haikus– anything goes!

–Rafael Campo, award-winning physician and author

EXECUTIVE BOARD