A new study has found that online therapy can help adults with asthma feel less anxious and improve their daily lives. The treatment is called internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy, or ICBT.
People who received this therapy had less fear about their asthma, managed their asthma better, and felt more confident in daily life.
They also avoided fewer activities because of their asthma. The treatment did not affect their lung function, which means it is safe to use along with regular asthma medicine.
Many people with asthma also struggle with anxiety. In fact, about one-third of adults with asthma deal with anxiety, which can make their symptoms feel worse and lower their quality of life.
Some people with asthma avoid exercise, social events, or travel because they worry it could trigger their symptoms. This kind of anxiety often goes untreated, even though it can make life harder for people with asthma.
Professor Catarina Almqvist Malmros from the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics helped start this research to find better ways to treat asthma-related anxiety. The team wanted to see if a structured and accessible online therapy could make a difference.
To test this, researchers ran a study with 90 adults who had asthma and strong anxiety related to it. The participants were randomly placed into two groups.
One group received eight weeks of ICBT, which included reading helpful texts, doing exercises, and getting feedback from a psychologist. The other group received standard asthma care and access to medical information online.
Researchers looked at how participants in both groups changed over time. They checked their anxiety levels, asthma control, quality of life, and lung function.
The people who got ICBT showed big improvements in their anxiety, asthma control, and overall well-being. They were also more willing to take part in everyday activities. Their lung function stayed the same, showing that the therapy did not cause any physical harm.
Marianne Bonnert, a psychologist and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience and the first author of the study, said the findings show that asthma-related anxiety can be treated with a clear and simple program. She said this kind of therapy can help people feel better, manage their symptoms, and live more freely.
The researchers are now looking into whether this type of therapy can also help children and teens with asthma. They have already started a study for kids aged 8 to 17 and their parents. The goal is to support young people early on, so they don’t develop long-term anxiety and avoidance behaviors.
In the future, the researchers hope that more age-appropriate and easy-to-access therapy options will become part of asthma care for all ages. This would make it easier for people to get the emotional support they need while managing their asthma.
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This important research was published in the journal Thorax.
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