PANIC DISORDER AND QUALITY-OF-LIFE - VARIABLES PREDICTIVE OF FUNCTIONAL IMPAIRMENT

Citation
M. Hollifield et al., PANIC DISORDER AND QUALITY-OF-LIFE - VARIABLES PREDICTIVE OF FUNCTIONAL IMPAIRMENT, The American journal of psychiatry, 154(6), 1997, pp. 766-772
Citations number
30
Categorie Soggetti
Psychiatry,Psychiatry
ISSN journal
0002953X
Volume
154
Issue
6
Year of publication
1997
Pages
766 - 772
Database
ISI
SICI code
0002-953X(1997)154:6<766:PDAQ-V>2.0.ZU;2-#
Abstract
Objective: The authors sought to characterize the functional impairmen t in patients with panic disorder, specifically the variance in impair ment explained by demographic and clinical variables. Methods: Sixty-t wo patients with panic disorder and 61 comparison subjects from three primary care clinic sites were assessed with an adapted form of the St ructured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. Impairment was assessed acc ording to three measures from the 36-item. Short-Form Health Survey (g eneral health perception, mental health, and physical functioning) as well as a principal component factor of the survey. Subjects were also compared with respect to personality variables, presence and severity of chronic medical illness, and demographic characteristics. Stepwise multiple regressions with and without pairwise interactions were used to construct models of disability in the patients with panic disorder . Results: The patients with panic disorder were more impaired than co mparison subjects on each measure of the Short-Form Health Survey. The panic disorder diagnosis combined with major depression, increasing n euroticism and age, less education, and an interaction between panic d isorder and age accounted for 48%-77% of the variance in impairment sc ores. Gender and ethnicity contributed modestly to the variance in imp airment in physical functioning, whereas no contribution was demonstra ted for chronic medical illness or city of residence. Conclusions: Fac tors in addition to panic phenomena contribute to the severe impairmen t seen in patients with panic disorder. Further research about factors that affect impairment may help improve clinical approaches to this i llness.