Perception of stress: Role of asthma and gender

Pages: 552-556
Sangeeta Rath (Department of Psychology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa)
Saadia Alam (Department of Psychology, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Orissa)

In today’s high pressure world, stresses and strains of modern living can become increasingly hard to bear. Stress is an everyday fact of life. It is frequently seen as a significant contributor to disease and clinical evidence is mounting for specific effects of stress on immune and cardiovascular systems. Asthma is triggered by many factors and stress is one of them. The study investigated the relationship between stress of asthmatics and non-asthmatics as well as male and female participants. The study adopted a 2(asthmatics and non-asthmatics) x 2 (males and females) factorial design .Two hundred and forty participants (120 asthmatics and 120 non-asthmatics) are randomly sampled from urban areas of Odisha. Out of the 120 asthmatics, there are 60 males and 60 females. Further 60 males and 60 females not suffering from asthma or any other disease are taken. The participants of all the four groups were compared with respect to their stress and coping abilities (readjustment difficulties).The results indicated that asthmatics experienced more readjustment difficulties or perceived more coping difficulties in personal, family and finance related events compared to non-asthmatics. Males perceived more readjustment difficulties in personal and finance related events whereas females perceived more readjustment difficulties in family related matters.