ASTHMA, PSYCHIC DISTURBANCES AND FAMILY HISTORY OF ATOPIC DISORDERS

One hundred asthmatic patients, divided into groups with/without a family history of atopic disorders (n = 62 and 38 respectively), underwent a semi-structured psychiatric interview and questionnaire and psychological investigations (MMPI, Wartegg test, Self-image test, Beck Depression Inventory). The study revealed a sub-group of 24 patients who were more likely than the others to have been extraverted and/or dominant in childhood and who were in sharp contrast with the remainder of the series in showing less or no introversion or depression. Twenty-three of these patients (96%) had a family history of atopic disorders, with an asthmatic parent more frequently among these than among the other cases. The patients with no atopic disorders in their relatives showed introversion in particular more frequently than the others, this being at least predominantly a precursor of asthma (long before the onset), but phobic symptoms were less frequent in this group. When asthma is viewed as a disease of multifactorial origin, the present results (and the differences in psychic and psychosocial factors between the present asthmatics and the non-asthmatic controls referred to in an earlier study) suggest that among the psychic factors introversion in particular is probably important within the combination of factors affecting the inception of asthma. © 1979.