Anxiety in Asthma: Panic-Fear Symptomatology and Personality in Relation to Manifest Anxiety

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Abstract
Anxiety in asthma has been measured in two ways. The MMPI Panic-Fear scale is a measure of general, nonillness specific anxiety and the Panic-Fear symptom scale of the Asthma Symptom Checklist is a measure of illness-specific anxiety focused on the asthma attack. Both measures relate to response styles in asthma which contribute to the maintenance of illness. In the present study of 140 asthmatic patients, MMPI Panic-Fear scores were highly related to trait-anxiety measured by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, even after partialling out checklist Panic-Fear symptom scores. In contrast, Panic-Fear symptomatology had a more moderate relationship to the Taylor Anxiety scores and was independent of the Taylor scores after partialling out MMPI Panic-Fear scores. The results support earlier findings suggesting that MMPI Panic-Fear measures trait anxiety. In contrast, checklist Panic-Fear symptom reports measure an illness-specific state anxiety that is not per se a measure of trait anxiety.

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