Abstract
Background:
Several studies described the relationship between stress and asthma. However, there is a shortage of literature that explains this relationship in the Arab region. This research aimed to investigate the association between psychological stress level and bronchial asthma among adult asthmatic individuals in Saudi Arabia, and to analyze the mechanism of the effect of psychological stress on asthma.
Methods:
The study was conducted among adult with asthma age ≥18 y in Saudi Arabia. The collected sample size was 733 participants, and data collection tool was an online questionnaire on asthma and stress scales.
Results:
The internal consistency for stress scale was (0.728) and asthma (0.819), out of total participants, 52% were female and 48% were male. The majority of participants were 18–26 y old (48.7)%. The low and high levels of asthma were found to be 20.3% and 54.6% respectively. The majority of participants had a high level of stress (85.4%). The Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated at (-0.216, P < .05) which indicated that high level of stress lead to poor asthma control.
Conclusions:
Psychological stress was significantly associated with asthma exacerbation and pathogenesis. Therefore, asthma patients must control their stress level in order to manage their asthma symptoms.
P value (0.097) of A4 is not significant
Plot box shows the difference in the extent of asthma control between male and female using asthma control scale. View all access options for this article.Table 1: Frequency and percentages of the asthma scale categories, where A1 represents the first question in the asthma scale which helps in estimating activities of daily living, A2 second question estimates dyspnea, A3 third question represents episodes of awakenings at night, A4 represents the use of medication by asthma patients, A5 represents patients’ self-evaluation of their asthma control level.
Asthma Category
Stress Category
P value
Low
Moderate
High
A1- 1
2 – 10.5%
3 – 15.8%
14 – 73.7%
0.002
A1- 2
0 – 0.0%
8 – 9.4%
77 – 90.6%
A1- 3
0 – 0.0%
15 – 9.7%
140 – 90.3%
A1- 4
1 – 0.6%
29 – 18.0%
131 – 81.4%
A1- 5
11 – 3.5%
38 – 12.1%
264 – 84.3%
A2- 1
0 – 0.0%
4 – 18.2%
18 – 81.8%
0.001
A2- 2
0 – 0.0%
5 – 6.0%
79 – 94.0%
A2- 3
0 – 0.0%
20 – 11.4%
155 – 88.6%
A2- 4
2 – 0.9%
26 – 12.3%
183 – 86.7%
A2- 5
12 – 5.0%
38 – 15.8%
191 – 79.3%
A3- 1
0 – 0.0%
3 – 8.1%
34 – 91.9%
0.015
A3- 2
0 – 0.0%
9 – 10.1%
80 – 89.9%
A3- 3
0 – 0.0%
11 -17.7%
51 – 82.3%
A3- 4
0 – 0.0%
27 – 13.4%
174 – 86.6%
A3- 5
14 – 4.1%
43 – 12.5%
287 – 83.4%
A4- 1
0 – 0.0%
3 – 8.8%
31 – 91.2%
0.097
A4- 2
0 – 0.0%
7 – 12.3%
50 – 87.7%
A4- 3
0 – 0.0%
17 – 21.0%
64 – 79.0%
A4- 4
1 – 0.7%
18 – 12.4%
126 – 89.6%
A4- 5
13 – 3.1%
48 – 11.5%
355 – 85.3%
A5- 1
6 – 7.1%
14 – 16.7%
64 – 76.2%
0.001
A5- 2
1 – 1.5%
1 – 1.5%
63 – 96.9%
A5- 3
0 – 0.0%
19 – 12.7%
131 – 87.3%
A5- 4
1 – 0.5%
24 – 13.1%
158 – 86.3%
A5- 5
6 – 2.4%
35 – 13.9%
210 – 83.7%
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