We examine the influence of different electron density stratifications on the coronal LOS-integrated profiles of H I Ly-$\alpha$ and O VI lines at 103nm. We find that the widths of the emitted lines are significantly affected by the details of the adopted electron density profiles. Densities deduced from SOHO data result in O VI profiles whose widths and intensity ratio are relatively close to the values observed by UVCS although only isotropic kinetic temperatures are employed. Hence we expect the magnitude of the anisotropy to depend strongly on the density stratification adopted when analyzing the data.