Parental attachment, premorbid personality, and mental health in young males with hyperventilation syndrome

The aim of the study was to examine the predisposing and precipitating factors in the development of hyperventilation syndrome in males during military training in Taiwan. The participants included 110 young males who visited the emergency room of a teaching hospital in southern Taiwan because of an episode of acute hyperventilation during military training. Another 53 males, who had the same military training, and who did not experience hyperventilation or any psychiatric symptoms, were recruited as the control group. The risk of hyperventilation syndrome was increased by the following factors: greater neuroticism, less extraversion, parental overprotection, and less parental caring. A final parsimonious structural equation model showed a cause–effect relationship between the direct effects of maternal overprotection and introversion and the individual's neurotic characteristics, which contributed to the individual's current mental health status and the development of hyperventilation syndrome. Military training could be a precipitating factor in the development of hyperventilation syndrome in young males. The elucidation of these factors may contribute to the understanding and treatment of hyperventilation syndrome. The determination of competing risk factors and mediating effects in males with hyperventilation syndrome should be considered in future studies.