Illness Expectations Tied to Asthma Outcomes

WEDNESDAY, July 16, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Illness expectations may be meaningfully associated with asthma symptoms and respiratory function, according to a study published online in the June issue of Health Expectations.

Eleonora Volpato, Ph.D., from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, and colleagues empirically evaluated the impact of illness expectations on asthma symptoms and respiratory function in a longitudinal cohort study. The analysis included 310 individuals 18 years or older diagnosed with asthma who were followed for a six-month period.

The researchers found that people with more negative explicit illness expectations about their asthma reported worse symptoms over time (β = −0.50). For implicit illness expectations, the association was not statistically significant (β = −0.014). There was an association between explicit illness expectations about symptom progression and changes in lung function, with more negative expectations predicting greater declines in respiratory performance (β = 0.51).

“These insights suggest that fostering positive expectations in patients could be a useful strategy in asthma care, potentially improving treatment adherence and symptom control,” the authors write. “Moreover, in the routine management of asthma, it might be relevant to use tools such as those we used in the study to make brief assessments of illness expectations during clinical consultations.”

Abstract/Full Text