Children's perception of physical symptoms: The example of asthma.

Introduces symptom perception as a concept to explain and understand the discordance between objective and subjective symptoms of disease. Contemporary models describing symptom perception and factors that influence these symptom perceptual processes are evaluated in light of recent empirical advantages. The accuracy of symptom perception is defined in terms of the relationship between objective (physiological) and subjective variables. Symptom perception is described as a process that is subject to a variety of influences, both within and outside the individual. The output of the symptom perceptual process can be formulated by borrowing response options from signal detection theory: (1) correct awareness of a symptom, (2) correct awareness of a normal sensation, (3) false awareness of a symptom, and (4) false awareness of a normal sensation. Childhood asthma is introduced, and specific features of asthma as well as general features of chronic diseases are addressed. Seven biomedical and psychological factors that explain aspects of symptom perception are evaluated, and developmental and gender issues are examined. The authors attempt to integrate the corpus of knowledge and to formulate a new perspective on children's perception of physical symptoms in chronic disease.