Bronchial Asthma: A Problem Attributable to Sampling when Establishing its Psychopathology

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Using two psychometric tests (the EPI and the HDHQ) as indicants of psychopathology in patients with bronchial asthma, a sample of those who were attending a hospital clinic revealed significant psychological disturbance. This was in contrast with results obtained from cases of the same disorder sampled at random from a register to which the name of every new asthmatic was added at time of first (and sometimes only) contact with the hospital clinic. The group of clinic attenders had high mean neuroticism and hostility scores when first tested. Two years later their neuroticism scores were similar, though their hostility scores had decreased-this was especially demonstrable in the extrapunitive hostility subscale ‘criticism of others’. The latter trend towards normality coincided with a reduction in frequency of clinic attendance, though the reason for this association may be related to other factors. The group of asthmatics taken from the register of diagnosed cases returned normal scores for both neuroticism and hostility. This study confirms that bias can be introduced as a result of the patient selection method. Before conclusions can be reached, attention must be paid to the representative nature of the sample.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: