Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 157, No. 1, Jan 1998, 116-122.
Personality profiles and breathlessness perception in outpatients with different gradings of asthma [In Process Citation]
A Chetta, G Gerra, A Foresi, A Zaimovic, M Del Donno, B Chittolini, R Malorgio, A Castagnaro and D Olivieri
Department of Respiratory Diseases, University of Parma, and Drug Addiction Research Center, Italy. chetta@ipruniv.cce.unipr.it
We studied the relationship between personality profiles, breathlessness
perception and clinical and functional features in 36 outpatient asthmatics
(12 females; age range: 18-52 yr). Each patient underwent psychometric
evaluation with Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).
Breathlessness perception was evaluated by Borg's scale during methacholine
(M) challenge, and PS20 (the perception score obtained when FEV1 fell by
20%) was recorded. Baseline FEV1 values ranged from 70.0 to 126%. PC20 M
values ranged from 0.05 to 31.7 mg/ml. According to a symptoms score system
(0 to 12 points), 12 asthmatics were classified as mild, 12 as moderate,
and 12 as moderate/severe. We did not find any specific personality profile
in asthmatic patients. Sixteen asthmatics had at least one MMPI subscale
score indicative of psychological disturbances. We found a significant
trend from mild to moderate and moderate/severe asthmatics (p < 0.015),
when the number of asthmatics with subscale scores indicative of
psychological disturbances was compared to that of asthmatics with normal
scores. Moreover, we found that the asthmatics with scores indicative of
hypochondriasis showed a significant trend from mild to moderate and
moderate/severe asthma (p < 0.015). Furthermore, in all asthmatic
patients, hypochondriasis scores were positively correlated to asthma
severity score (p < 0.02). PS20 values ranged from 0.1 to 8.1. Twelve
asthmatics were hypoperceivers (PS20 < or = 1) and four were
hyperperceivers (PS20 > or = 5). We observed a significant trend from
mild to moderate and moderate/severe asthmatics (p < 0.025) when we
compared the number of hypoperceivers to that of normoperceivers. In
conclusion, we found that in outpatients with different grading of asthma,
severity of disease is linked to psychological disturbances and poor
perception of breathlessness, additionally, hypochondriasis was related to
disease severity in all patients.
