Psychological Stress Evaluation of Patients with Bronchial Asthma Based on the Chromogranin A Level in Saliva

Abstract

To evaluate the involvement of stress in asthmatics we measured the concentration of chromogranin A (CgA) in saliva as an indicator of psychological stress and investigated its correlation with peak expiratory flow (PEF), a visual analog scale (VAS) score of symptoms, and the score of the Short-form 36 health survey questionnaire (SF-36) in 62 adult asthmatics. CgA had a significant correlation with role physical (RP) (r = –0.298, p < 0.05), role emotional (RE) (r = –0.294, p < 0.05) and the physical component summary (PCS) (r = –0.310, p < 0.05) of SF-36, and VAS score (r = –0.435, p < 0.01). We concluded that the concentration of CgA reflects the stress in asthmatics caused by work or daily life limitations.

Keywords:

• bronchial asthma
• salivary chromogranin A
• Short-form 36 health survey questionnaire (SF-36),%
• peak expiratory flow
• visual analog scale (VAS)