COMORBID PANIC DISORDER AND MAJOR DEPRESSION - IMPLICATIONS FOR COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY

Panic disorder and major depression frequently coexist, yet the implic ations of comorbidity for psychological treatments haul rarely been st udied. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether pretreatmen t comorbidity of major depression affects the outcome of cognitive-beh avioral treatment (CBT! of panic disorder Thirty-seven clients who met diagnostic criteria for both panic and major depression participated in IO sessions of individual CBT for panic. Treatment outcome was cont rasted with the outcome of 53 clients having only panic disorder who r eceived the same treatment. The cooccurrence of depression did not adv ersely affect CBT for panic. These results have implications for clini cal practice and theoretical implications for the nature of the relati onship between panic and depression.