Aim: This study compared the personality profiles of children with sighing dyspnoea with healthy children and tested the hypothesis of heightened anxiety scores in sighing dyspnoeic subjects using the Childhood Behavior Check List for Ages 4 to 18 (CBCL/4-18). The pulmonary function tests of these two groups of children were also compared.
Methods: This prospective study enrolled paediatric patients with sighing dyspnoea presented to a paediatric pulmonary clinic but free from apparent cardiopulmonary diseases, and age-matched healthy children were recruited for comparison. The psychological profiles of the patients were collected by the CBCL/4-18, which was completed by the parents. Spirometry was performed on sighing children as well as volunteer healthy children, before and after bronchodilator.
Results: Twenty patients complained of sighing dyspnoea and 31 healthy children were included in the study. Both groups of children scored consistently within the normal ranges of all subscales including anxiety, somatic complaints or internalising behaviour on CBCL/4-18. The t-scores were not significant different between children with sighing dyspnoea and age-matched controls. Baseline forced vital capacity in the sighing patients appeared to be lower than the healthy children, but was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: The CBCL/4-18 scores of children with sighing dyspnoea were not significant different from age-matched healthy children and a heightened anxiety score was not confirmed in this study. Office spirometric values in patients with sighing dyspnoea were normal.