Shorter communication
A test of the relations between avoidance of panic-related situations and substance use, substance dependence, and depression among subclinical panickers

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.10.001Get rights and content

Abstract

The hypotheses that among subclinical panickers, avoidance of panic-related situations would be associated with elevated substance use levels and increased likelihood of lifetime diagnoses of substance dependence and major depressive disorder (MDD) were tested. Findings confirmed that panic-related avoidance was associated with an elevated likelihood of lifetime diagnoses of nicotine and alcohol dependence as well as MDD, but not drug dependence. Panic avoidance was also related to relatively greater daily levels of cigarette and alcohol use.

Section snippets

Method

Data from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R) were examined. The NCS-R was an epidemiological study employed across the continental United States, intended to assess the prevalence of DSM-IV (APA, 1994) psychiatric disorders among English-speaking adults, 18 years or older (Kessler & Merikangas, 2004). Information was collected via face-to-face in-home interviews between February 2001 and April 2003, yielding a response rate of 70.9%.

Descriptive data

Within part II of the NCS-R sample, 20.9% of participants reported a lifetime panic attack history without meeting criteria for a lifetime diagnosis of PD. Of these, 27.5% met lifetime criteria for MDD, 5.7% for drug dependence, 8.3% for alcohol dependence, and 12.7% for nicotine dependence. The average number of lifetime panic attacks among subclinical panickers was 10.24 (SE = 0.86). Table 1 includes demographic information and lifetime diagnostic prevalence rates of the sample.

Hypothesis tests

Table 2 includes

Discussion

Researchers have documented that broad-based avoidance of negative affect is associated with elevated substance use and depression among people with panic-spectrum problems (Bibb and Chambless, 1986, Holahan et al., 2005, Marshall et al., 2008, Moulds et al., 2007, Ottenbreit and Dobson, 2004, Zvolensky et al., 2008). The current study uniquely extended this area of research by investigating the relation between substance use/dependence, depression, and avoidance of panic-related situations

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported in part by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract (U49 CE001248) and a Department of Defense grant (PT073945) with Dr. Feldner.

References (36)

Cited by (12)

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text