[Bronchial asthma in childhood and adolescence. Burden of illness and coping with the disease].

We report an empirical study in which the subjective complaints and stress experiences of children with bronchial asthma (outpatient, short- and long-term rehabilitation) are analyzed. The data were taken from a specifically developed questionnaire. The results should contribute to the conceptualization of programs for patient education and asthma training in order to meet the exact requirements and needs of the children to be instructed. The role of emotional asthma triggers is specified. Hierarchical cluster analysis is applied in order to analyze, first, the perception patterns of attack precursors and, second, the array of stressors that a child has to face as a consequence of suffering chronic asthma. Based on the social learning theory approach, the child's various expectations about the controllability of an asthma attack are differentiated. A factor analysis reveals that the coping process can be described by two basic coping dimensions.