Background: Despite increasing evidence for an association between allergy and psychological disorders in patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), the relationship between comorbid AR and asthma is not clear. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of concomitant asthma, gender, and sensitization to a particular aeroallergen category on the psychological status of AR patients.
Methods: We analyzed 524 AR patients (311 males/213 females) aged 16 to 60 years using the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and found that 34.2% had persistent AR and 65.8% intermittent AR. Overall, 61 patients (11.6%) had concomitant asthma.
Results: The SCL-90 scores of AR patients were significantly higher for the somatization, obsessive-compulsive, hostility, and psychoticism dimensions than those of the healthy controls. In contrast, the SCL-90 scores for persistent AR and intermittent AR patients were significantly different. Concomitant asthma significantly impacted theAR individuals' SCL-90 dimension scores for the obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and paranoid ideation subscales. Gender and sensitization to a particular aeroallergen category did not affect the SCL-90 scores of AR patients individually, but led to significant differences in SCL-90 scores for the phobic anxiety and psychoticism subscales when considered in combination.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that comorbid asthma exerts an independent main effect on the psychological status of AR patients.