THE STUDY OF ANXIETY SENSITIVITY, ALEXITHYMIA, POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY AND MENTAL HEALTH AS PREDICTORS ASTHMA DISEASE

The psychological issues can contribute to improving the health of patients with asthma. This study investigated the role of psychological factors (including anxiety sensitivity, positive and negative affectivity, alexithymia and its components and mental health) in predicting the risk of asthma. The study population consisted of 78 asthma patients and 74 healthy ones. All patients were diagnosed by an allergy and asthma specialist. Psychological variables were evaluated by the ASI, TAS-20, PANAS, and SCL-25 The results showed that 26% of variance of dependent variable (groups) is explained by our predictor variables. The classification results showed that the discriminate function classified 73% of subject correctly. Stepwise analysis showed that anxiety sensitivity and positive affectivity contributed most to discrimination of groups. The results showed that the impacts of psychological factors are important in predicting asthma. It is essential to care for such psychological issues in prevention and treatment of asthma.