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[Psychological profile of the pediatric asthma patient]
Maricela Hernández Robles1, Cecilia Ramírez Enríquez, Sandra N González Díaz
1Centro Regional para la Prevención y el Tratamiento de las Enfermedades Alérgicas, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México.
Background:
When a child develops asthma symptoms, several changes in his/her behavior, in his/her family and in his/her social environment begin.
Objective:
To identify the most frequent personality traits and psychological disturbances in asthmatic children and adolescents.
Material And Methods:
A transversal, observational and descriptive study was performed on 85 asthmatic children and adolescents ages from 5 to 18 years old that attended a questionnaire, and a graphic test on 77 of those children, which consisted on drawing two pictures. Such pictures were analyzed by a psychotherapist to determine the personality traits and the psychological disturbance present in these individuals.
Results:
All the children answered positively at least one of the questions which detect data related to depression in the questionnaire, being the more frequent: easy anger (40%), insomnia (29%), sadness (15%), auto-aggression or suicide ideas (11%) and loss of appetite (6%). According to graphic test interpretation, 39% of children showed a depression disturbance, 29% adaptation disturbance with depression symptoms, and 12% an adaptation disturbance. In addition, we found that 2 children were victim of abuse and negligence into their families.
Conclusion:
The 100% of the evaluated asthmatic children and adolescents, showed data related to depression presence.