Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 52, Issue 5 517-525, Copyright © 1990 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Is allergic rhinitis more frequent in young adults with extreme shyness? A preliminary survey

IR Bell, ML Jasnoski, J Kagan and DS King
Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts.

Previous studies suggest that social anxiety, allergies and distressed affect may be interrelated in some persons. For example, extremely introverted patients experience a poorer course and outcome of allergies as well as greater degrees of distressed affect such as depression and anxiety than do extraverts. Patients with affective disorders have a higher prevalence of atopic allergy than the general population; families of patients with panic disorder and major depression have the highest frequency of shy children. Preliminary investigation also indicate that behaviorally inhibited Caucasian children (initially shy and cautions in unfamiliar situations) and their families have more allergies, especially hay fever, than do uninhibited, socially outgoing children. The present survey evaluated the frequency of self-reported shyness. The most introverted subjects had significantly higher scores on self reports of depression, fearfulness, and fatigue, as well as a higher prevalence of hay fever. The data support the possibility of a distinct subgroup of shy individuals with concomitant vulnerability to specific allergies and affective disorders.

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