A CONCEPT ANALYSIS OF PANIC

Minimal attention has been focused on the concept of panic in the disc ipline of nursing, Hindering a greater understanding of panic is its l ack of explication and development in nursing, To help remedy this sit uation, a concept analysis of panic was performed. The hybrid model of concept development was used, which consists of an initial theoretica l phase, a fieldwork phase, and a final analytical phase. In the theor etical phase, after a cross-disciplinary literature search was done, e xisting definitions and measurement of the concept of panic were analy zed, and a working definition of panic was formulated, In the fieldwor k phase, women experiencing postpartum panic disorder were interviewed to collect qualitative data for further analysis of panic. The final phase focused on comparing and contrasting the findings from the theor etical phase with the insights discovered from the fieldwork. Applicab ility of panic across nursing is addressed along with implications for nursing theory, practice, and research. Copyright (C) 1996 by W.B. Sa unders Company