[A diagnostic questionnaire for the hyperventilation syndrome in children]

Intensive efforts should be made to diagnose the hyperventilation syndrome (HVS) at an early stage as this will prevent stigmatisation and reinforcement of symptoms. It will also prevent children from undergoing unnecessary medical examinations and treatment. A diagnostic questionnaire should be useful for this purpose.

We administered a questionnaire with 16 respiratory symptoms and 23 non respiratory symptoms to 25 children with HVS alone, 20 with asthma and HVS, and two control groups: 20 children with asthma without HVS and 20 presenting with trauma. For each symptom a visual analogue scale (VAS) was completed. The symptoms for which the mean VAS values were significantly different between the children with HVS and the controls were subject to principal component analysis after varimax rotation with Kaiser normalisation.

There was no significant difference in symptoms between HVS children with or without asthma. The five major respiratory symptoms were: throat-clearing, sniffing, difficulty in breathing in, sighing and yawning. The combined sensitivity of those symptoms was 99%, the combined specificity 24%. The five major non-respiratory symptoms were: anxiety, difficulty in going to sleep, general fatigue, abdominal pain, and joint pains. The combined sensitivity of those symptoms was 99%, the combined specificity 36%.

We performed a simplified diagnostic questionnaire for HVS in healthy and asthmatic children and found 5 respiratory and 5 non-respiratory symptoms of significance.