Separation Anxiety and Actual Separation Experiences during Childhood in Patients with Panic Disorder

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The association between separation anxiety in childhood and actual separation experiences during childhood has not yet been investigated in patients with panic disorder. METHODS: In 115 patients with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia and in 124 control subjects without a history of psychiatric illness, we assessed separation anxiety during childhood, retrospectively, using DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria and the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI). In addition, actual separation experiences from age 0 to 15 years were assessed, retrospectively. RESULTS: A total of 22.6% of the patients and 4.8% of the control subjects fulfilled both DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria for childhood separation anxiety (chi 2 = 11.8; P < 0.0001). Further, 57.4% of the patients and 37.9% of the control subjects reported actual separation experiences during their childhood (chi 2 = 9.09, P < 0.003). Separation anxiety and actual separation experiences, however, were independent of each other. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that separation anxiety during childhood is not a consequence of actual traumatic separation experiences in panic disorder patients.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 54 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.