Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia With Panic Attacks. Covariation Along the Dimensions of Panic and Agoraphobic Fear

This study tested the validity of the distinction made in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (third edition) between the diagnoses of "panic disorder" and "agoraphobia with panic attacks" by examining the pattern of covariation between panic symptoms and agoraphobic fear in a group of individuals presenting with panic attacks as a prominent symptom. Subjects were 72 patients who had previously been diagnosed by expert diagnosticians as having either panic disorder or agoraphobia with panic attacks and who had completed at the time of diagnosis both the Fear Survey Schedule and the Symptom Checklist 90-R. Analyses of the panic-related items and the agoraphobia-related items of these two inventories revealed that irrespective of diagnosis, the degree of panic was highly correlated with the degree of agoraphobic fear. Although panic patients tended to experience more severe panic and milder agoraphobic fear than agoraphobics, the groups overlapped with respect to both kinds of symptoms. The findings are discussed in terms of whether panic disorder and agoraphobia should be classified as qualitatively distinct conditions.