Anxiety sensitivity, temperament and character features in panic disorder patients with and without agoraphobia

OBJECTIVE: It is known that there is a relationship between panic disorder and temperament/character and anxiety sensitivity. In this study, we aimed to compare the temperament/character and anxiety sensitivity characteristics of PD patients with and without agoraphobia and healthy controls, as well as to examine the relationship of these characteristics with agoraphobia and PD severity. METHOD: The study included 80 patients, who were diagnosed with panic disorder in Aydın Adnan Menderes University Hospital Psychiatry Department outpatient clinics or inpatient service, met the inclusion criteria to study. In the healthy control group, 74 people from Aydın Adnan Menderes University Hospital staff and relatives of patients followed up in the Aydın Adnan Menderes University Hospital Psychiatry Department outpatient clinic and/or inpatient service who met the criteria for participation in the study, were included. Sociodemographic data of all participants were taken in detail and SCID-I was applied. Panic disorder severity was evaluated with PAS and PDSS. In addition, BDI, BAI, STAI I-II, ASI-3 and Turkish TCI scales were applied to all participants. RESULTS: In our study, no significant difference was found between the PD patient group with and without agoraphobia and the healthy control group in terms of age, gender and marital status. Higher anxiety sensitivity and harm avoidance in the PD patient group, both with and without agoraphobia, compared to the healthy control group; lower scores of cooperativeness and self directedness were found. In addition, it was shown that the PD patient group with agoraphobia had lower novelty seeking scores than healthy controls. No significant difference was found between the PD patient groups with and without agoraphobia in terms of clinical characteristics, except for the panic disorder severity scale score. A significant relationship was found between the severity of PD and AS, trait and state anxiety, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and harm avoidance. Mediator analysis has shown that anxiety sensitivity affects panic disorder severity both directly and indirectly through harm avoidance. CONCLUSION: In our study, panic disorder severity was found to be higher in PD patients with agoraphobia. There was no significant difference between the patient groups in terms of anxiety sensitivity and temperament/character dimensions. Our analysis results showed that, contrary to my hypothesis, anxiety sensitivity and harm avoidance did not have a predictive effect on agoraphobia, and that these variables were related to PD severity. KEYWORDS: panic disorder, agoraphobia, anxiety sensitivity, temperament, character