The impact of emotions on symptom perception in patients with asthma and healthy controls

Accurate perception of respiratory symptoms is highly important for course and treatment of asthma. Recent findings suggest that emotions can greatly impact respiratory symptom perception. This study compared the impact of emotions on respiratory symptom perception between patients with asthma and matched healthy controls. Pleasant and unpleasant emotional states were elicited by viewing emotional picture series while symptom reports and respiratory parameters were measured. Greater symptom report was observed for the unpleasant compared to the pleasant emotional state that was not related to respiratory parameters. Notably, this effect was comparable between patients with asthma and healthy controls. The present results suggest that the impact of emotions on respiratory symptom perception is a rather general phenomenon and not dependent upon previous experiences with asthma symptoms.