DEVELOPMENT OF ASTHMA PSYCHOSOCIAL SYMPTOM CHECKLIST

Abstract

The present study explored the psychosocial issues related to asthma in the context of Pakistani culture. The first phase comprised of individual interviews with 20 asthmatic patients to generate item pool as suffered by them. The list of 47 items, exclusive of duplication, was piloted on 10 asthmatic patients based on self-report measure of five point rating scale (Asthma Psychosocial Symptom Checklist). The main study was conducted with World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief (2003) questionnaire Urdu adapted version, Siddiqui Shah Depression Scale (1997) and the demographic checklist on 200 asthmatic patients taken from different government and private hospitals of Lahore over convenient sampling. Data of 100 normal individuals without history of lungs disease) was gathered to compare the results. Psychometric properties of the new scale asthma psychosocial symptoms checklist elicited Cronbach alpha, discriminant and convergent validity. Significance of health psychologists with reference to multi-model treatment approach was discussed in lieu to implication of the study.