Investigon of the relationship between childhood trauma, dissociation and attachment in panic disorder patients

This study focused on panic disorder, which is called anxiety disorders in DSM-V. Panic disorder occurs suddenly and for no apparent reason. It is a psychiatric diagnosis that occurs with cognitive fear-anxiety in the individual, manifests itself with various physical symptoms, and continues with recurrent panic attacks, which generally lasts 10-30 minutes and creates anticipatory anxiety in the individual. In this study, the relationship between the of childhood trauma, attachment and dissociative experiences in the patient group diagnosed with panic disorder and the control group without any diagnosis was investigated. For this purpose, a personal information form, consent form, panic disorder severity scale (PDSS) to measure the severity of panic disorder, childhood traumas scale (CTQ-33) to measure childhood traumas, dissociative experiences scale (DES) to measure dissociative experiences, and experiences in close relationships inventory -2- short form (ECR-S-II) to measure the level of attachment was given to both groups. The sample consisted of men and women between the ages of 18-65 (n:124). Obtained data were analyzed with Independent sample T-test, Pearson Correlation test and Multiple Regression in SPSS program. As a result of the findings; in the group diagnosed with PD; DY, CT and its sub-dimensions; emotional abuse, physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and overprotection-control level was found to be significantly higher than the control group. It was determined that the level of experiences in close relationships and the level of avoidance of its sub-dimension were significantly higher in the group diagnosed with PD compared to the control group. It was determined that the level of anxiety (ERI sub-dimension) did not differ significantly between the patient and control groups. It was found to be associated with the severity of PD; TF, anxiety sub-dimension, emotional neglect and overprotection control dimensions (CT sub-dimension) explain 25% of PD severity. The anxiety dimension and the overprotection control dimension did not have a significant effect on the severity of PD. It was determined that DY and emotional neglect dimensions had a positive and significant effect on PD severity. According to this result; When DY is increased by 1 unit, the severity of PD increases by approximately 14%. When the level of emotional neglect is increased by 1 unit, the severity of PD increases approximately 48%. KEYWORDS: attachment, childhood trauma, dissociation, dissociative experiences, experiences in close relationships, panic disorder, , panic disorder severity