Psychological profile of the pediatric asthma patient
Hernández Robles, M.; Ramírez Enríquez, C.; González Díaz, S.N.; Canseco González, C.; Arias Cruz, A.; del Castillo, O.
Revista Alergia Mexico 49(1): 11-15
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 0002-5151 PMID: 12070891 Document Number: 548369
When a child develops asthma symptoms, several changes in his/her behavior, in his/her family and in his/her social environment begin. To identify the most frequent personality traits and psychological disturbances in asthmatic children and adolescents. A transversal, observational and descriptive study was performed on 85 asthmatic children and adolescents ages from 5 to 18 years old that attended a questionnaire, and a graphic test on 77 of those children, which consisted on drawing two pictures. Such pictures were analyzed by a psychotherapist to determine the personality traits and the psychological disturbance present in these individuals. All the children answered positively at least one of the questions which detect data related to depression in the questionnaire, being the more frequent: easy anger (40%), insomnia (29%), sadness (15%), auto-aggression or suicide ideas (11%) and loss of appetite (6%). According to graphic test interpretation, 39% of children showed a depression disturbance, 29% adaptation disturbance with depression symptoms, and 12% an adaptation disturbance. In addition, we found that 2 children were victim of abuse and negligence into their families. The 100% of the evaluated asthmatic children and adolescents, showed data related to depression presence.