THE EFFECTS OF COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY FOR PANIC DISORDER ON COMORBID CONDITIONS

In a replication and extension of prior research (Brown, Antony, & Bar low, 1995) examining the impact of treatment on additional diagnoses, our study investigated the effects of cognitive-behavioral treatment f or panic disorder on frequency and severity of comorbid conditions in 33 principal panic disorder patients. Patients were diagnosed using th e Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Revised (ADIS-R; Di Nardo & Bar low, 1988) and assigned severity ratings indicating degree of distress and/or impairment for both principal panic disorder and comorbid cond itions. A high rate of comorbidity (63.6%) was found at pretreatment. Following cognitive-behavioral treatment, there was a significant redu ction in the number of patients with at least one additional diagnosis (p <.01); the greatest declines were found in comorbid social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder. Severity ratings also declined signi ficantly from pre- to posttreatment for comorbid social phobia, genera lized anxiety disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder (p <.01) and were marginally significant for depression. There was a trend for com orbidity to reduce likelihood of achieving high improvement in panic a t posttreatment. Implications of these findings for classification and treatment mechanisms are discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.