The relationships of childhood traumas, alexithymia and anxiety sensitivity with dissociative symptoms in panic disorder

The findings about dissociative symptoms which can be observed on a wide array from normal population to clinical cases and are associated with poor prognosis and poor response to both pharmachological and psychotherapeutic interventions in Panic Disorder indicate the importance of research investigating variables pertinent to those symptoms. The main purpose of the present study is to reveal the relationships between childhood traumas, alexithymia and anxiety sensitivity with dissociative symptoms and severity of Panic Disorder by means of structural equation modelling. Moreover, it is also aimed to test the mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship of childhood traumas and dissociative symptoms, and evaluate how the structural model fit differs across neglect-related and abuse-related childhood traumas. In line with those purposes, 87 participants (56 female, 31 male) who were diagnosed with Panic Disorder, had no comorbid psychiatric disorders, aged between 20-50 (35,71 ± 11,02) volunteered in the study. Data was analyzed with SPSS 21 program for independent samples t-tests, One-Way ANOVA and correlation analyses; with SPSS PROCESS macro for mediation analysis; and with AMOS 26 program for structural equation modelling. The findings showed that the difficulty in identifying feelings subfactor of alexithymia mediated the relationship between childhood traumas and dissociative symptoms. According to the results of structural equation modelling, while alexityhmia was mediating the relationship between childhood traumas and dissociative symptoms, dissociative symptoms predicted anxiety sensitivity and anxiety sensitivity predicted the severity of Panic Disorder. Testing the structural model seperately for neglect- and abuse-related childhood traumas revealed that abuse-related childhood traumas better fit the model than neglect-related. The findings of the present study underlines the cruciality of considering unresolved childhood traumas and processing emotions with Panic Disordered-patients presenting dissociative symptoms in clinical settings.