Posttraumatic stress disorder following asthma attack: the role of agency beliefs in mediating psychiatric morbidity

Abstract

Any item and its associated metadata held in the University of Cumbria's institutional repository Insight (unless stated otherwise on the metadata record) may be copied, displayed or performed, and stored in line with the JISC fair dealing guidelines (available here) for educational and not for profit activities provided that• the authors, title and full bibliographic details of the item are cited clearly when any part of the work is referred to verbally or in the written form• a hyperlink/URL to the original Insight record of that item is included in any citations of the work • the content is not changed in any way• all files required for usage of the item are kept together with the main item file. You may not• sell any part of an item• refer to any part of an item without citation • amend any item or contextualise it in a way that will impugn the creator's reputation• remove or alter the copyright statement on an item.The full policy can be found here. Alternatively contact the University of Cumbria Repository Editor by emailing insight@cumbria.ac.uk. AimsTo determine the prevalence of PTSD following asthma attack, and investigate whether agency beliefs mediate PTSD and comorbid psychiatric symptoms in this population. MethodWe recruited 110 adults with asthma from online peer support forums. Participants completed the Asthma Symptom Checklist, PTSD Checklist, GHQ-28, General Self-Efficacy scale, and Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scale. Results20% of our sample met criteria for PTSD. Regression results indicated that higher asthma severity significantly predicted PTSD and psychiatric co-morbidity. Lower selfefficacy significantly predicted PTSD symptoms while controlling for asthma severity, however Locus of Control (LoC) did not improve the model further. Self-efficacy, but not LoC, significantly partially mediated the effect of asthma severity on PTSD severity and psychiatric co-morbidity. Conclusions 2Pos$rauma)c Stress Disorder following asthma a$ack PTSD and other psychiatric symptoms in asthma populations are mediated in part by self-efficacy. Safeguarding and improving self-efficacy in this population is an important area for future research and intervention. Declaration of interestThe authors have no conflict of interest to declare.