Abstract
Background: The relationship between psychological factors and asthma has received attention since very early times. However, there’s a lack of knowledge about the temperament and character features of asthma patients. We aimed to assess if there are specific personality traits in asthma patients.Methods: Thirty-eight patients with asthma and thirty-five healthy individuals were enrolled in the study. The sociodemographic data form and Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) were applied to all participants. Results: The mean age was 40.9 ± 15.9 in the asthma group (52.1%) and 37.3 ± 14.3 in the control group (47.9%). There were 29 females and 9 males in asthma group, 19 females and 16 males in control group. In analysis of temperament and character subscales, the scores of harm avoidance, frugality, sentimentality and transpersonal identification were higher in asthma patients than the control group; the differences were statistically significant (p<0.05). There were no significant differences between the groups for alexithymia (p>0.05).Conclusions: Our study showed that there were character and temperament differences between asthma patients and healthy group. There were no differences for alexithymia between the groups. Further studies are needed to evaluate the causes of differences and the impacts of traits on disease course.
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