Evaluation of the impact of long-term stress on the clinical course of asthma

Stress is considered one of the main trigger factors in patients with bronchial asthma, however, given the difficulty of standardizing the level and type of stress for each patient, objectively assessing the impact of long-term homogeneous stress on the course of asthma is quite a difficult task. That is why our goal was to evaluate the effect of homogeneous long-term stress on the course of asthma, by comparing its clinical course before and during hostilities. Research materials and methods. 133 adults with asthma living in the Sumy region 30 km from the border with Russia were examined in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The asthma control questionnaire (ACQ), number of exacerbations per the last year, and frequency of use of systemic corticosteroids were assessed before and after 1^st and 2^nd year of active combat. The study was approved by the Local Ethics Committee. Statistical data processing was performed using the SPSS Statistic 21 program. <bold>Results:</bold> We found a significant (p<0.01) worsening of all indicators: the annual increase in the proportion of partially controlled asthma (32% in 2021, 36% in 2022, and 40% in 2023) and uncontrolled asthma (28%, 34% and 39%, respectively), the same changes were found on the number of exacerbations per the last year (2.33±0.57 in 2021; 2.57±0.61 in 2022; and 2.74±0.48 in 2023) and the frequency of need of systemic corticosteroids (1.73±0.39; 1,92±0.28; 2.03±0.36, respectively). <bold>Conclusions:</bold> Long-term stress can be enough to significantly worsen the clinical course of asthma, so the study of adequate stress management can be a promising direction in the improvement of asthma treatment.