Psychologic symptoms in asthma and chronic urticaria

Psychologic symptoms of 102 adult patients with asthma and 74 adult patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria, plus 252 normal nonclinical controls and 383 psychologically distressed ('socially isolated') but medically healthy adults were assessed by means of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). On average, both asthma and urticaria patients had more psychopathology-evident in most symptom dimensions of the BSI-than healthy controls but much less than 'socially isolated' adults. Nevertheless, only about 40% of the subjects in both patient groups had above-normal BSI scores. Both men and women with asthma and women with urticaria had BSI scores greater than the normal controls, whereas the scores of men with urticaria were not different from those of healthy men. Thus, about half the women with either disease but less than one man in three with asthma and only about one man in ten with urticaria had significant psychologic distress. Recognition of patients' psychologic symptoms should be useful in planning and managing their medical therapy.