Prevention of chronicity in Psychosomatic illness: research study into the treatment of childood asthma.

This article presents the results of a research study examining the usefulness of an integrated, multidisciplinary, systemic treatment in improving symptoms and preventing chronicity in childhood asthma. The study began with the hypothesis that the experimental treatment, integrating pharmacological therapy and family psychotherapy, would be more effective than a simply pharmacological approach in preventing asthma from becoming chronic. Twenty children (6-13 years of age; 50% male, 50% female) were grouped into 10 homogeneous pairs. Grouping variables were gender, age, family composition and social status. One group served as the "experimental" group, the other acted as the "control." Outcome variables included clinical parameters of asthma and relational parameters (assessment of family dynamics). Clinical parameters of the asthma were examined before, during, and after the 3 to 4 months study period. Relational parameters, tested with a modified version of Wiltwyck Family Tasks method, were examined before and after the family therapies. The Wilcoxon non-parametrical test for paired samples was used to assess pre- and post-treatment differences in relational parameters for the experimental group. All 7 parameters showed significant improvement. The Mann-Whitney non-parametrical test for independent samples was used to test for differences between the experimental and control groups in two main clinical parameters (frequency of asthma attacks and dependency on pharmacological treatment). Whereas there were no significant differences between the two groups before therapy, there were significant differences after therapy. The improvement of the experimental patients compared with the control patients was maintained at three follow-up evaluations (6 months, 1 year, and 2 years after the end of the therapy). The results show the effectiveness of an integrated systemic approach based on complex treatment compared to a reductionist approach