COMORBIDITY OF PANIC AND SOMATIZATION DISORDER - A GENETIC-EPIDEMIOLOGIC APPROACH

Although recent diagnostic systems support the distinctiveness of pani c disorder (PD) and somatization disorder, a high level of comorbidity of these two diagnoses has been reported, indicating a need for inves tigations with external validators. One hundred fifty-nine outpatients with DSM-III-R PD and 76 surgical controls were screened for lifetime presence of DSM-III-R somatization disorder, and the risks for some t ypes of psychiatric disorders in their families were computed. In our sample, 23% of women and 5% of men with PD also had DSM-III-R somatiza tion disorder, Women patients with PD plus somatization disorder did n ot differ from women with PD only in age at onset of panic, agoraphobi a, childhood history of separation anxiety, or lifetime diagnoses of o ther disorders. Familial risks for PD, PD-agoraphobia, and alcohol dep endence were significantly higher for families of women with PD and wo men with PD plus somatization disorder than for controls. The familial risks for antisocial personality (ASP) disorder (a familial indicator for the somatization disorder spectrum of liability, phenomenological ly independent from both PD and somatization disorder) were significan tly higher for families of women with PD plus somatization disorder th an for families of women with PD only or for controls. Application of DSM-IV criteria for somatization disorder substantially decreased the comorbidity with PD. Our data suggest that somatization disorder is no t simply a form of PD, and that the two disorders may coexist in the s ame subject without sharing a common genetic diathesis. Compared with DSM-III-R, DSM-IV criteria for somatization disorder appear to be simp ler in structure and of less complicated application. Copyright (C) 19 95 by W.B. Saunders Company