Comparative psychodiagnostic test study in acute and chronic asthma patients

: The psychic characteristics of patients suffering from asthma bronchiale have mostly been investigated without considering the duration of the illness. So the question was if and in which way the duration of the disease influences the patient's psychic state. 61 asthmatics were examined by the FPI and by a structured interview. Two parallel groups with a duration of illness of less than two years respectively more than five years were compared with each other. Obviously frankness and self-criticism were to be found more frequently in the chronic group than among the patients of the short continuance of the disease. The lower frankness and willingness to self-criticism of this group of patients is also symptomatic of the first reaction to the sudden onset of the illness. The patients' first reactions are denial and repression, especially concerning the psychic parts in the multifactorial pathogenesis of the disease and its social consequences. In the course of the illness self-criticism and the capability of perceiving psychosocial factors increase. These results lead to the conclusion that the chronification of asthma bronchiale is a stimulus for confrontation with conflicts in the own biography and thus with the illness itself. It seems important to use different forms of psychotherapy depending on the duration of the illness.