ABSTRACT

Asthma is a common respiratory disease that affects millions of people in the world and affects these patients in various physical, mental and social aspects. The main purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of mental disorders in patients with asthma with the general population. This research is of descriptive and survey type. The statistical population of this study consisted of people with asthma (over 16 years old) admitted to the asthma and allergy clinic of Rasoul Akram Hospital in Tehran in the three months of April, May and June 2015. 150 patients with asthma and 150 normal individuals were selected using convenience sampling method. In this study, the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and a researcher-made questionnaire were used to collect demographic information. The results of t-test of two independent samples at a significance level of 0.05 showed that the mean total score of people with asthma in the questionnaire was significantly higher than the normal population and, in more detail, physical complaints, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety and sensitivity to reciprocal relationships and aggression in patients with asthma was significantly different from the normal population, but schizophrenia, paranoid thoughts, and phobia were not significantly different between the experimental and control groups. According to the findings, it can be concluded that patients with asthma suffer from more and more severe mental disorders than normal people, and apart from medical treatments, they also need psychiatric care.

Keywords: Asthma, Mental Disorders, Normal Population