PERSONALITY PROFILES AND BREATHLESSNESS PERCEPTION IN OUTPATIENTS WITH DIFFERENT GRADINGS OF ASTHMA

We studied the relationship between personality profiles, breathlessne ss perception and clinical and functional features in 36 outpatient as thmatics (12 females; age range: 18-52 yr). Each patient underwent psy chometric 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 w hen FEV1 fell by 20%) was recorded. Baseline FEV1 values ranged from 7 0.0 to 126%. PC20 M values ranged from 0.05 to 31.7 mg/ml. According t o a symptoms score system (0 to 12 points), 12 asthmatics were classif ied as mild, 12 as moderate, and 12 as moderate/severe. We did not fin d any specific personality profile in asthmatic patients. Sixteen asth matics had at least one MMPI subscale score indicative of psychologica l 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 com pared to that of asthmatics with normal scores. Moreover, we found tha t the asthmatics with scores indicative of hypochondriasis showed a si gnificant 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 less than or equal to 1) and four were hyperperceivers (PS20 grea ter than or equal to 5). We observed a significant trend from mild to moderate and moderate/severe asthmatics (p < 0.025) when we compared t he number of hypoperceivers to that of normoperceivers. In conclusion, we found that in outpatients with different grading of asthma, severi ty of disease is linked to psychological disturbances and poor percept ion of breathlessness, additionally, hypochondriasis was related to di sease severity in all patients.