Mental health problems among asthma patients

Abstract

The present study was carried out to see the mental health problems among asthma patients. There were three objectives of the study. The first objective was to determine the common mental disorders among asthma patients attending the outpatient service. The second objective was to evaluate associations between the psychiatric status and health related quality of life (HRQoL) of adults suffering from asthma. The third objective was to determine health related quality of life (HRQoL) of asthma patients compared with control. The Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-24), the SF-36 and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis-I Disorders, Clinician Version (SCID-CV) were used to meet the objectives. The study identified common mental health problems among asthma patients in Bangladesh. In this study, total sample size was 800, among them 400 were asthma patients and 400 were healthy individuals as a control group. Here, two stage designs were used to assess psychiatric morbidity rate and different types of common mental health problems among asthma patients. Age and sex matched healthy subjects were included as a control group for comparing health related quality of life of asthma patients. An evaluation was also made to whether psychiatric morbidity affected HRQoL. The samples' age range was 18 and over. The study results showed that 33.76% of asthma patients attending outpatients’ service obtained psychiatric diagnosis. In this study, dysthymic disorder was 13.32%, major depressive disorder was 8.16%, panic disorder was 4.91%, generalized anxiety disorder was 4.24%, obsessive compulsive disorder was 1.33%, social phobia was 0.75%, somatoform disorder was 0.25%, depressive disorder nos was 0.50% and anxiety disorder nos was 0.25%. The quality of life of asthma patients who were diagnosed to have psychiatric disorder was poor compared to those asthma patients who had no psychiatric disorder. It has been proved that patients who were suffering from asthma performed very poor in daily life than healthy individuals. The present study concludes that the prevalence of psychiatric disorder among asthma patients is an alarming issue. There is a significant association between psychiatric status and health related quality of life. HRQoL is highly affected in asthma patients. This study confirms that psychiatric morbidity is high among asthma patients. These findings suggested that an interdisciplinary approach is necessary for the management of asthma patients as well as to improve their physical, mental, emotional and social functioning.