Canadian Health&Care; Mall

Breathing is threatened in asthma. It is, therefore, not surprising that the most common form of psychological morbidity was anxiety ; anxiety at the level of psychiatric diagnosis was found in up to one-third of hospitalized patients and 25% in the community. Post-traumatic stress disorder may follow an acute severe attack; the intensity and severity of anxiety may not disappear readily. While states of mild fear are common in all who have asthma, clinically significant anxiety is a much greater problem in those with clinically more serious disease , underlining the need to address anxiety as part of comprehensive asthma management. Asthma is an illness that demands constant monitoring for the early signs of a serious attack. Limited anxiety occurring only during an attack may lead to more appropriate management decisions, but suppression or denial of this ‘signal’ anxiety, while protective in terms of unpleasant emotion, may itself be life-threatening .